In Care Of
by Fang's Fawn
Summary: During the summer before sixth year, Harry finds an injured bat in the garden and decides to try to heal it...and an unwilling Snape learns just what kind of a person Harry Potter really is. No slash. Part 2 continued in "Tightrope."
1. Author's Note

**Author's Note:**

I have now updated_ In Care Of, _so the text here matches the definitive text posted on the Potions & Snitches fan web site ( potionsandsnitches dot net). This is a more polished version, with typos and discrepancies edited out. If anyone should find any I missed, I would appreciate hearing about it - I don't want to subject readers to substandard work if I can help it.

_In Care Of _is part one of what will ultimately be a trilogy: part 2, _Tightrope_, is currently in progress, and will be followed by the third and final part, _Endgame _(title subject to change).

People have been so generous with their reviews, I can no longer respond to them all without giving up writing the story altogether! I thank you for your reviews; they inspire me and help me to press on.

Due to the delays between updates, some people have expressed anxiety that this tale will be abandoned. Rest assured, this will not happen: writer's block is not an issue in my case, as I already have the entire story (all three parts) mapped out in my mind. I need only get it in print! Unfortunately, real life has intervened in many different ways over the past year (some pleasant, others less so), which has unavoidably slowed me down in the writing process. I _will _continue as I can, though; this is a promise.

Best,

Fang's Fawn

_Some facts about fruit bats:_

I just wanted to enter a few tidbits here about fruit bats to avoid confusion, since they're not indigenous to the UK.

While I'm aware that fruit bats are tropical in nature, I figured since, according to JK Rowling, wizards cannot choose what kind of animal they turn into when they become animagi (she implies that the personality of the wizard determines the animal type), there is nothing preventing them from becoming an animal that is not native to a particular area (after all they should not have to rely on existing in that environment in order to survive). I figure I can get away with using a non-native species since Hedwig, a Snowy Owl, is not native to the UK, either – and she's not even an animagus!

Fruit bats are also known as "megabats" and "flying foxes." About sixty subspecies make up flying fox fruit bats, and this is what I picture when I picture Snape as a bat.

Unlike insectivorous bats, flying foxes (which feed on fruit, flowers and nectar) do not rely on echolocation. So, while their hearing is very sensitive, they do not form sound "images" like other bat species. In fact, they generally rely on their excellent vision and keen sense of smell to seek out the fragrant, colorful foods they prefer (the term "blind as a bat" is a misnomer).

I haven't really made up my mind as to what subspecies of flying fox Snape transforms into, but to give you a frame of reference, here are some characteristics of the Indian Flying Fox:

- At about 12 inches long, a male Indian Flying Fox would be about half Hedwig's length

-A female Snowy Owl weighs about 5 pounds; a male Indian Flying Fox weighs 3-4 pounds

-An Indian Flying Fox's wingspan is about 50 inches; Hedwig's would be anywhere from 56-66 inches

"Spartacus" is somewhat smaller than this, but as you can see, some bats can become quite large.


	2. Chapter 1

At first, he hadn't been sure of what exactly he was seeing. He thought it might be a dark brown rat lying under a black leather glove.

Although they were indigenous to the UK, Harry had never seen a bat in person...not up close, anyway, unless you counted that disastrous trip to the zoo on Dudley's birthday five years earlier. And since those specimens had been housed in a large, glass terrarium, he didn't count it.

The fact that he'd never gotten a good look at one in the wild was hardly surprising. Though not exactly endangered, Britain's bat population was waning, and as such the creatures were protected. Plus, being shy, quiet and nocturnal, one was not likely to find a bat very easily – unless, of course, one had specifically gone bat-spotting.

Harry hadn't been looking for this bat. He'd stumbled across it while weeding the vegetable garden.

He'd only arrived home from Hogwarts six days previously, but Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia already had him hard at work. Aunt Petunia was determined to win a neighborhood prize for her vegetable garden this year, so this meant plenty of extra work for Harry. In truth, he didn't mind. The hard, physical labor was nothing he wasn't used to when he was at the Dursleys'; it kept him from thinking too much about Sirius, and by the time he fell into bed at night, he was too exhausted even to dream, which was a relief.

Harry had gone straight out to the garden immediately after making breakfast for his family. With summer coming on fast, he preferred doing the garden work during the cooler morning hours. Though not as talented with plants as, say, Neville Longbottom, he did enjoy being outdoors and helping things grow. Plus, it was nice to spend part of his summer around living things that held no animosity toward him, like his family did. Now that he didn't have Hedwig, the plants were better than nothing.

Shortly before the school year ended, Hedwig had reinjured her wing. Harry had taken the suffering owl straight to Hagrid.

"Well, Harry, she's in a righ' state," the half-giant rumbled, examining the uneasy bird carefully. "Should heal up proper, tho'. You'd best leave 'er with me…I'll have 'er right as rain in a month's time, then send 'er on home to yer."

Hermione, seeing the look on Harry's face at this news, had added reassuringly, "Don't worry, Harry. We'll write to you often, and you can have letters ready to send back with the owls we send."

"That's right, mate," Ron had added encouragingly. "Give me a chance to burn off some of Pig's endless energy!"

But it hadn't only been worry over her well-being and anxiety at being without a means of communication with the wizarding world that had Harry troubled. Hedwig was more than just a pet – she was his friend and familiar, and no one had any idea (because he had never told them) how much time he spent talking to her during the summers. And now, with Sirus only just gone, Harry would not have Hedwig to talk to about him.

He had just been going over this again in his mind when his hand had brushed against the dead bat under a cabbage leaf.

Harry's eyes first registered the leather glove, then the dead rat, then he whipped his hand away in disgust. On closer inspection, he saw that it was not a dead rat, but a dead bat. Fascinated, he raised the plant leaf for a better look.

A sudden clout on the ear propelled him sideways, knocking his glasses askew.

"Boy! What are you lollygagging around for?" Uncle Vernon towered over him, purple-faced, mustache bristling. "Didn't you hear your aunt tell you to get this garden weeded?"

Fixing his glasses with one hand and rubbing his throbbing ear and head with the other, Harry glared resentfully up at his uncle, but forced himself to stay civil. Daily shoves and cuffs aside, he'd managed to avoid one of Vernon's full-out thrashings thus far, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"Sorry, Uncle Vernon," he said quickly, gritting his teeth to keep back a rude remark. "I just got distracted a bit when I saw this dead animal."

Vernon took a closer look, then grimaced in disgust. The look on his face was usually one he reserved for Harry.

"Well, get rid of that thing, boy," he grumbled. "And don't put it in the bin where it will smell the place up."

Uncle Vernon turned on his heel and strode toward the driveway. "And heaven help you if you don't have your chores done by the time I get home!" he snapped over his shoulder.

Muttering darkly to himself, Harry turned back to the plants. He could almost feel the belt against his back already. Nothing he could do about it, though. With a sigh, he pulled on his gardening gloves and reached for the dead creature under the cabbage leaf. He was not squeamish about touching dead or disgusting things (he'd never get through Potions, Care of Magical Creatures or Herbology if he was), but no point in taking any risks…bats were known to carry rabies. It might be fun to leave it in Dudley's bed...he wondered how suicidal he was feeling.

As Harry lifted the fragile creature in his gloved hand, he thought he felt a fluttering in the area of its breast.

Not dead, after all.

Harry inspected the little creature closely. It appeared to be a common fruit bat, with rich, dark brown fur and black, leathery wings. A light froth around the fox-like snout was tinged with red. It's eyes were half-shut, glazed with pain and stupefaction. One of the wings appeared to be torn at the shoulder, as though it had been grabbed by a predator.

Holding the bat in his hand, Harry sat back on his heels and considered for a moment.

Probably he should put the creature out of its misery. But the idea of killing _anything,_ even in mercy, repulsed him. Even after hearing the prophecy in Dumbledore's office, he still had not come to terms yet with the task before him. Besides, Voldemort was different – he'd murdered his parents, and countless others. This small animal in his hand was just a bat, uncomprehending and helpless.

Maybe he should just leave it where he found it. But that would almost certainly condemn the bat to death. Injured as it was, it would not be able to fly off if one of Mrs. Figg's cats came by.

He could try to cure it himself, Harry thought. Keep it in Hedwig's cage, protect it until it was well enough to fly on its own. As always, he'd privately built up a store of potion remedies (some he made himself, some he nicked from Snape's stores) to help through another summer of Vernon's "discipline."

Aunt Petunia would go to pieces if she found it, but she never came in his room anymore – he was expected to keep it clean himself. Dudley wouldn't come into his former "second bedroom," either – nothing there to interest him. No, the only intruder Harry would have to worry about would be Vernon, and Vernon only ever came into his room to punish him. With any luck, there wouldn't be a problem.

Mind made up, Harry rose, the bat still in his hand. He pulled the glove off his right hand with his teeth and, using it to cover the bat in his left hand, returned to the house. Aunt Petunia was getting ready to go shopping; Dudley wasn't home yet from spending the night at Piers's. He'd have plenty of time to get his new pet settled, then get back to work on the garden.

The stinging in his ear seemed to have abated with the this new preoccupation. For the first time since arriving "home," Harry felt…cheerful. He didn't know if he could help the bat or not, but it would be nice worrying about something so small and mundane for a change. And one other thing: the bat would be no replacement for Hedwig, might even be terrified of him…but certainly wouldn't despise him for just being Harry.


	3. Chapter 2

A wizard can become an animagus in one of two ways: through transfiguration or through the animagus potion. James Potter, for instance, having been particularly gifted at transfiguration, had chosen that means to orchestrate his own transformation and those of his friends. They performed the spell illegally, and at great personal risk to themselves.

Severus Snape's transformation was just as illegal – and dangerous – as that of the Marauders', but there the resemblance to their escapade ended. Gifted at potions, Snape chose this (arguably even more dangerous) route to make the change. Also, he was an adult, fully qualified wizard when he underwent the transformation under safer and more responsible conditions, with a powerful and more experienced wizard on hand ready to asist should anything go wrong. And his motivations for going through with the spell were very different than those of the Maruaders. James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew (abetted by Remus Lupin) had been giddy with their own talent and eager to indulge in adolescent rebellion. Snape, driven by his own desperate need to atone for the mistakes of his youth, had hoped only to further his spying capabilities for the Order.

Albus Dumbledore had been very serious when Snape first proposed the plan.

"You do realize, my boy, that this is a very risky procedure," he gently reminded his former student. "Besides the illegality of the thing, which is not to be overlooked should the Ministry get wind of it, there is much that can go wrong."

"I am prepared," Snape replied calmly. His black eyes, as usual, gave nothing away.

Dumbledore's piercing blue ones were more open.

"Remember, too, Severus, that the risk may be for naught in the end," he added. "You cannot choose the form your animagus self will take. If, therefore, the result is something along the lines of, say, a Tibetan yak, you will have undergone the danger for a result that will – forgive me – be of very little use for clandestine activities."

"We can only try," Snape had replied, his black eyes glittering strangely. And without further ado he had downed the smoking potion at a single go. There had been something almost fatalistic in his look that troubled the older wizard, but there was no going back now.

As it turned out, his new form could not have been more conducive to spying. Small, nocturnal, and common enough so he would not be noticed by casual observers (fruit bats, of course, being tropical in nature as opposed to their insectivorous cousins); able to fly and with highly sensitive hearing, his animagus self seemed tailor-made for the job. Dumbledore was delighted (not least because Snape came through the painful transformation intact), and Snape was pleased enough…though he might have preferred a more dignified animal. And one with which he had not already, unfavorably, been compared on numerous occasions by his detractors.

Still, it was done now, and as both a bat and a double-agent he had been able to garner more valuable information on Voldemort and his followers than all the Unspeakables at the Ministry combined. It helped that only one man knew he was an animagus – Albus Dumbledore. Not even Voldemort suspected.

Snape sometimes thought, with a dry, humorless smile, that the students might have guessed had they tried. They already referred to him as an "overgrown bat" (as well as a "greasy git") behind his back. But as tempting as it was, he never used his animal form to try to catch students in wrongdoing. Not even Potter. No, he made the transformation for one reason, and one reason only – to aid in his attempts to help bring down Voldemort. Let the Marauders be tempted by nighttime kitchen raids and forbidden excursions; he, Snape, liked to think he had more self-discipline. Nothing must interfere in bringing Voldemort down.

Dumbledore understood him better than anyone – that it was not for the Order that Snape put himself in danger time and again, not specifically. It wasn't even to help the wizarding world at large. With the possible exception of Dumbledore, he had no love for other people, no desire for accolades, and no interest in what others thought of him. His sole motivation was to destroy the man who murdered Lily Evans, and he was as single-minded in this purpose as he was about protecting Lily's boy – not for the sake of the boy himself, but for Lily alone. Snape's devotion both impressed and saddened Dumbledore, but Snape had no desire to change.

In truth, having only Dumbledore be aware of his animagus achievement suited him…not only did the knowledge give him an edge over the Death Eaters; it protected him from the well-meaning comments of the Order. The Order knew that _someone_ was there during Snape's occasional guard duty stints at Privet Drive; they simply did not know _who_, or even _what_, and this was fine with him. Snape preferred, as always, to keep himself solitary. He did not want, nor feel he deserved, friendship. Lily had been his only friend; he had betrayed her to her death. Again, it had been so long since he had been friends with Lily that he had forgotten how to _be_ a friend (Death Eaters notwithstanding – if one could even count such a motley crew of suspicious, jealous, evil toadies as friends, even when he felt himself one of them). To Snape, the Order's friendship would be as unwelcome as their insults. He rebuffed Molly Weasley's well-meant attempts at drawing him in with dinner invitations and kindly inquiries, finding them harder to deal with than Moody's overt suspicions. Their respect (uncertain as it was) was enough. He wanted nothing more.

This, then, was why he chose to perform his guard duties as a bat. Strictly speaking, of course, Number 4 did not _need_ to have anyone stand guard over it: the blood wards were more powerful than any Fidelius Charm. Although the exact location of his summer residence was unknown to Voldemort and his Death Eaters, Potter did need an escort when he left the protection of the wards – to wit, when he stepped off the property. Granted, this did not happen often – after last summer's Dementor attack, the boy was warier about wandering than he had been formerly. But the fact remained that he did occasionally (wonder of wonders, Snape though sarcastically) visit the local library, and his aunt did occasionally send him on errands. Thus the need for a guarded escort, albeit one unbeknownst to the boy.

Potter-watching was a dull job, Snape thought. The boy spent most of his time indoors, no doubt being waited on hand and foot by his doting relatives even as his benighted father had been before him. When he did come outdoors, it was to do yard work – his muggle family was apparently slightly more adept than the elder Potter's family when it came to attempting to instill responsibility into a teen. Not that they were having much success, based on what Snape had seen at school – and of Potter's overly large, obnoxious cousin.

Potter did not appear to have any muggle friends, nor did he spend much time with his cousin so far as Snape could see, though they were close in age – apparently Potter felt he was above such acquaintances. Snape did not dwell on this particular weakness of character, given that he'd been the same way himself at Potter's age. His aversion to muggles, however, had been as a result of his harsh upbringing. He'd had to soothe the spirit crushed by his alcoholic, abusive father somehow, and feeling himself above and apart from the muggle schoolchildren who teased him about his wretched clothing, drunken father and abject poverty was one way in which to do it. It wasn't like he, Snape, had had a choice in how he appeared to others at that time, either. Potter, he noticed, dressed poorly, but as the muggle cousin was always well turned-out, Snape figured this could be attributed to either the boy's plebian tastes or to a desire to emulate muggle gang fashions. Either way, it was none of his business – he need only make sure the boy stayed safe during his few excursions.

On the eve of the morning Potter found a crumpled bat huddled under a cabbage leaf, Snape, in his animal form, was perched high in a sycamore tree in front of Mrs. Figg's house. A great advantage of his animagus self was that he did not need to get too near Number 4 to be aware of what was going on there. As a bat, his exceptional hearing was magnified many times, and he could easily make out the voices of the inhabitants of the dully normal home while they were in the kitchen – and even distinguish the voices, if not the words, when they were in other parts of the house. This was how he'd known Potter was being sent out again; he could hear a woman, presumably Petunia, screeching that she was missing an ingredient she needed for the evening meal, and someone had better fetch it from the shop a few blocks away.

Potter came through the back door a moment later, looking sullen – _probably disgusted at being dragged away from an inane television program,_ Snape thought. As the boy started up the sidewalk, Petunia appeared in the doorway herself, a shadowy silhouette illuminated in the twilight by the glow of the kitchen light behind her.

"And make it quick," she cried, her voice as grating as Snape remembered from his childhood. "Or you won't get any!" The back door slammed.

Potter muttered something under his breath and quickened his pace.

_Must be an off-night for this happy little family_, Snape smirked to himself. _I must say,_ _Petunia has not aged well at all._

He unfolded his leathery wings and gently launched himself from the twig to which he was clinging, soaring silently above Potter's head as the hunched figure hurried up the street.

Snape had never been particularly at home on a broom – competent, but that was all. As a bat, however, he rejoiced in flight, the way a real bat would. The only problem was landing – bats were graceful in the air, but had a tendency to crash-land. It took a great deal of practice before Snape was able to overcome nature's design enough to swoop from tree to tree, spotting a branch to seize onto, then launch off again in the next breath. In this way, he managed to keep up with Potter.

It was getting dark. The streetlights were flickering on. The ephemeral heat of this pre-summer day was quickly losing ground to the waning light. Snape could feel the pavement from the road below throwing off its warm, afternoon mantle in preparation for the night. With his bat's hearing he could pick up a plethora of sounds – distant cars, children at a playground a street over, dishes being washed in houses he passed, insects. The soft padding of Harry's trainers on the macadam.

It seemed like an ordinary, early summer evening in Little Whinging, and yet something seemed…off.

It wasn't until Potter disappeared into the corner grocer's seven blocks away from Number 4 that Snape spotted McNair. His "fellow" Death Eater was standing casually in front of the newsstand across the street from the grocery, dressed in muggle clothing and smoking a cigarette. Snape felt the fur prickle along his back and neck as his hackles rose. He had not been aware of any plans to attack Potter…but then, the Dark Lord didn't tell him _everything_. And he had been aware for some time that there were plans being made that he was unaware of. Like Dumbledore, Voldemort preferred to not put all his eggs in one basket. Particularly, perhaps, when that basket spent so much time on the arm of Dumbledore? Snape smiled grimly to himself at the irony of that thought.

While Snape clung to a street lamp, considering the situation, Potter came out of the grocer's, a brown paper bag in his arms. It looked heavy – _so much for Petunia's "one or two" things she forgot_, Snape thought sardonically.

Potter glanced around carefully, frowning slightly. His eyes skated over McNair. With a slight shrug, the teen turned and headed for home. Snape held himself still on the street lamp, watching McNair carefully.

When Potter was about a block and half ahead of him, McNair stretched, tossed away his cigarette, and began moving in the same direction as the boy. He did not hurry.

Snape began flying slowly after him.

This had all the makings of a conundrum. Was McNair alone? If not, Snape had not yet spotted an accomplice. And whether the Death Eater was alone or not, what was his plan? If he had wanted to kill Potter he could have done so already with no muggles being aware of his presence. Snape could not believe, anyway, that Voldemort would give such an order to any Death Eater. Capturing Potter would be easy enough, too, Snape thought, on a walk like this: he was alone, there appeared to be no one near. So what was McNair waiting for? He must know that Potter would vanish before his eyes when he came into the immediate vicinity of his home. He could simply be trying to map the area, but Snape would have been surprised to learn that this had not already been done.

Meanwhile, he had to make a decision. Stay and see what McNair was up to, or disapparate and call in reinforcements? If he stayed and an attack was mounted on Potter, he would have to deal with it alone, and by doing so would have to compromise both his position as a double agent and his status as an unregistered animagus (since no wizard could perform magic while in animal form). This would be a serious blow to his usefulness as an intelligence gatherer. But how could he risk leaving Potter to have to deal with an attack on his own? He clicked his teeth together softly, a habit his bat self had developed when he thought hard.

They were getting closer to Privet Drive. McNair was maintaining an even distance from Potter, not trying to catch up at all – merely keeping him in sight. He did not notice the bat swooping from tree to lamppost to telephone pole above his head.

With his highly sensitive hearing, Snape should have heard what was coming sooner, but so intent was he upon watching McNair, and so certain of the infallibility of his disguise, that he grew careless. A very, very slight hissing sound, along with the lightening of the air behind him, caused him to finally look up just as he was preparing to launch off a drainpipe.

He saw what looked like a twirling, round saw blade made of fire, coming straight for him.

With a squeak, Snape flung himself sideways off the drainpipe, but could not evade the speeding flame-blade entirely. It sliced into his webbed foreleg, just where the wing met the shoulder.

There was no time to feel any pain. The blow knocked him straight down, hard onto the sidewalk below, and he knew nothing more.

McNair, hearing the scuffle, turned just as the boy vanished behind the blood wards. He stared down at the bat, startled, then looked up as Bellatrix Lestrange approached.

Bellatrix aimed her wand at the inert animal. "_Animagus revelio_!"

Nothing happened. She stepped forward and picked it up without a shudder.

"Bella? What is it?" McNair drew closer.

"Just a bat." She gave an indifferent shrug. "I thought perhaps an auror…well, never mind that now. The boy?"

McNair jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Should be home by now."

"Good. We shall report back to the Dark Lord." Bellatrix flung the body of the wounded bat away from her, in the direction Potter himself had taken. It also vanished within the wards.

The two dark wizards turned on the spot and vanished as well.


	4. Chapter 3

He hurt all over. Badly. That was the first thing he became aware of.

The second thing Snape became aware of was that he seemed to be lying in a sort of thick nest made of soft, white, cotton wool. It was very warm and comfortable. He lay quietly for a few moments, enjoying the warmth and softness. He felt…peaceful. There didn't seem to be any reason to move.

A memory nudged at the edge of his consciousness, trying to get in. He tried to shoo it away, but then it came back to him. Potter, walking through the streets of Little Whinging. McNair. A fiery blade coming at him.

A sudden burst of adrenalin shot through Snape and he leaped to his feet. He realized immediately that this was a mistake when a sudden, searing pain shot through his neck, shoulder and side, taking his breath away – a good thing, or he might have cried out. Shaken, he sank back down into the cotton wool. Blinking blearily, he drew his hand slowly forward in an attempt to inspect the damage to his arm and shoulder. Instead of an arm and hand, though, a furry foreleg came into view, with long, leather-webbed fingers. Still in bat form, then.

Snape abandoned the attempt at self-examination – at least for the moment – and began to examine his surroundings instead. He shifted slightly in his bed, and found that it was indeed a nest of white cotton wool he was lying in. Someone had lined a white, cardboard box with the stuff and placed it in – he looked up and around – what looked like a bird cage. For a very large bird, maybe an owl or a parrot, he thought. He sniffed – probably an owl; although the cage had been recently cleaned, his sensitive bat's nose could detect traces of the former occupant.

The cage was a good four feet high and wide enough in diameter to accommodate an owl's wingspan, at least partially. About a foot above his head, a thick, wooden dowel formed a sturdy perch. A pair of jingle bells hung from the apex of the cage. Bent metal strips fixed a cuttlebone to one side of the cage and a small mirror to the other. Food and water dishes were also hung at levels that an occupant of the perch could easily reach. The floor of the cage was lined with clean newspaper, and several inches in front of his makeshift bed Snape spotted two more dishes – one filled with fresh water, the other with – he sniffed – strawberries. Outside the cage he could not see – a heavy blue cloth covered it. He thought it was probably still day, though, as light was filtering gently through.

Snape listed carefully. He could hear outdoor sounds – birdsong, children playing in the distance, tires on asphalt – from a nearby open window. He could hear no movement, no breathing, no heartbeat in his immediate area. Therefore, he reasoned, he could assess his own physical condition without fear of immediate intrusion.

Snape took a quick inventory of his aches and pains. The severest pain was located in his right shoulder. He remembered the fiery blade coming at him and twisted around, gingerly, to inspect the area. To his surprise, it was bandaged quite competently – a thick, white pad was held in place over the wound with strips of gauze that crisscrossed his body between and around his wings and passed around his breast. His keen sense of smell picked up something else under the bandage, too…a whiff of an astringent made from, if he was not mistaken, birch bark; a strain of vanilla, feverfew and rosehips. Strange…he might almost have made this pain-relieving, infection-fighting concoction himself.

Painfully, Snape crept over to the dishes that had been left for him. He was not in the least interested in the food, but desperately thirsty. He sniffed at the water – lavender and chamomile extracts had been added to it; not much – just enough to calm and relax him. He hesitated, then drank deeply before returning to the homemade nest.

Moving carefully, Snape sat back on his haunches and considered the situation. He was…perplexed.

On the face of it, whoever had picked him up had done so in an attempt to help. But who would bother picking up an injured bat in a muggle neighborhood? A muggle child might do it – many children, muggle or wizard, might try to "rescue" an injured animal and try to heal it. But a small child would surely have been clumsier with the bandage, even if he or she _could_ have gotten past a watchful mother, carrying a wounded animal, without being intercepted. And while a muggle adult might know enough to add lavender and chamomile to his water, the complex herb-and-mineral mixture applied to his injury could only have been brewed by a wizard, he would bet his degree on that.

This was another worry. He was certain the _animagus revelio_ charm had been cast upon him – even allowing for the magical injury and the fall, he would not be feeling nearly so sore if it hadn't. If it had, the potion he had invented to counteract the spell (a potion that would not have helped him if he'd transformed through transfiguration) appeared to work, but the strain on his body had been as severe as he'd expected it might be. Every muscle in his body felt as though it had held on to its assumed shape for dear life, and he now ached terribly all over.

So…if a wizard had cast the spell, and his counter-spell had worked, why would that wizard then try to heal him unless he was wanted for questioning? And if he _was_ wanted for questioning, why was he being kept in a cage where he would be unable to transform back into a human? And, most of all, how could anyone even suspect that he was an animagus after _animagus revelio_ had failed? He and he alone knew of the existence of his potion – he had not even shared the invention with Dumbledore, yet. He felt badly shaken by the thought that his disguise had been compromised in some way.

The headache that had been circling like an ominous bird settled in like a conquering enemy. Pain from his wound and recent blood loss weakened him, and, sinking down into the cotton nest, he gave in to the relaxing herbal concoction.

When Snape woke again, his entire right foreleg felt numb, and the pain in his shoulder had subsided to a dull ache. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth and tasted the remnants of a fever-reducing potion, with a pain reliever mixed in. Slowly, he opened his eyes and raised his head from his nest.

The cover had been removed from his cage. It was quite dark out – he caught a glimpse of starry sky from a small, square window. A light breeze came in, twirling the drab curtains that framed the window. Without moving, he cast his eyes around the rest of the room.

It was a small room, painted a dull beige. There was no carpet on the floor. His cage hung from a hook in the ceiling in one corner adjacent to the door; in the corner opposite from him on the same wall was a single twin bed with a thin blanket, made but rumpled, as though someone had been lying on it earlier. A battered nightstand with a small reading lamp, its bulb switched on, stood next to the bed. Beside to the lamp on the nightstand was a leather-bound photo album, a half-empty water glass and a book – Snape could just make out the title: _Quidditch Through the Ages_. On the wall just over the head of the bed hung a scarlet and gold pennant featuring the Gryffindor lion. Arranged at the foot of the bed was a large trunk, the kind students used to transport their things to school.

In the corner next to the door was a tall, shabby wardrobe. One door of the wardrobe had a broken latch, so that it stood slightly ajar. Under the window stood a very small, rickety writing desk with a number of spell books, sheets of parchment, quills, and a bottle of ink scattered across its surface. The simple, straight-backed chair in front of it did not match the desk, and one of its four legs was missing a caster so that it was an inch shorter than the other legs.

The door to the room was closed. Strangely, it had pet door installed in it.

It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out whose room he had wound up in – the place he went down, the Gryffindor pennant, the spell books, parchment and ink, _Quidditch Through the Ages._ Even the cage made sense; he knew the boy's injured owl was with Hagrid. But Snape was still confused. Certainly, this was not how he expected Harry Potter's room to look. It looked like…a storage room in a house with no extra rooms to spare, thrown together in a hurry for an unexpected guest who would not be staying long. Adequate as shelter (barely), but hardly a schoolboy's sanctuary. It looked like his own childhood room in the house at Spinner's End after he had started going to Hogwarts.

Before he had time to reflect further, the door opened, and the boy himself stepped in, confirming his suspicions.

It was Snape's first close-up view of Potter since school let out. Scrawny the boy always was, but he looked skinnier than ever now. He also looked a trifle on the unhealthy side, with dark circles under his eyes that made his thin face seem even paler than usual. His shoulders were slightly slumped, as though he was very tired, or carrying the weight of the world on his narrow shoulders, or both. Grief over Black, Snape supposed.

Potter shut the door behind him, turned, spotted the bat in Hedwig's cage and grew still.

"You're awake," he said softly.

Not since the boy's first year had Snape seen Potter's expression turned on him with an emotion other than wariness, fear, anger or loathing. Now he looked…curious, but gentle and concerned. He came toward the cage, moving slowly and carefully, as though he were approaching an injured, frightened animal – which, of course, was exactly what he thought he was doing.

"Well, you look like you're doing a bit better, then." The boy kept his voice low, and his tone soothing. "I brought you something fresher if you feel like eating anything. You should try to eat it this time…build up your strength."

Potter carefully opened the door to the cage, lifted out the food dish, and emptied the wilted berries into a wastebasket next to the desk. He added a few slices of apple to the bowl and replaced it, shutting the cage door again. Snape watched warily.

"You should eat those," the boy said encouragingly. "I got a book out of the library so I could see what kind of fruit you'd take…glad I can do this instead of bugs!" The boy smiled a little.

Potter retreated from the cage until he had backed up against his school trunk. Slowly, he sat down on the lid, keeping his eyes on Snape in frank fascination. _Probably never saw a bat from this close before_, Snape thought sardonically. _He looks like a gaping idiot_.

"You got a pretty bad rip in that wing," Potter said, still speaking in what he clearly hoped was a soothing, non-threatening tone. "I did my best to heal you with what I have, but I don't know many healing spells and I'm not allowed to do magic outside of school anyway. The Ministry would know."

He sat quite still on the lid of his trunk – _stiller than he does in my classroom_, Snape thought bitterly. The boy looked relaxed, his hands hanging loosely over the knees of his patched, baggy jeans.

"Well, I'll leave the cover off the cage for you since it's your time to be awake," Potter said finally, apparently decided he was making the bat nervous. "Tomorrow I'll check your wing again and give you some more potions. I'm not sure how long it's going to take you to heal – hopefully before Hedwig gets back. She'd be furious if she found another pet here."

_Potter's pet!_ Snape thought furiously. _Merlin, has it really come to this? How am I going to manage to get out of this mess? I wish it had been Dark wizards getting ready to interrogate me, after all!_

"Guess I should give you a name while you're here," the boy went on. He appeared to consider the matter for a moment. "I could call you 'Snape' or 'Severus' – you remind me of my git of a potions master!" He grinned impudently.

Snape could not keep back a slight hiss.

"Yeah, you're right– you probably deserve better than that. Look, I'll call you something close – Spartacus. I got that name out of a Roman history book." The boy smiled. "Spartacus was a slave who became a warrior, and freed a lot of other slaves. I think that'll fit you just fine. I'll free you as soon as you're well, too."

The boy rose, retrieved a pair of tattered blue pajamas and a toothbrush from the wardrobe, and disappeared down the hall.

Snape was confounded. How was he supposed to get out of this! Dumbledore would was probably already worried, and what if the Dark Lord called?

_Perhaps, when Potter responds to a letter from Lupin or one of the Weasley's, he'll mention me, _Snape thought. Then he realized that wouldn't do him any good unless it was mentioned to Dumbledore, since no one else knew he was an animagus. And with all that was going on with the war, it didn't seem likely that someone would casually mention to Dumbledore during an Order meeting that Harry Potter had adopted an injured bat over the summer holiday.

There was a good chance that, when Potter next tended the injured wing, he would risk removing Snape from the cage. But then what? Should he take the opportunity to transform? If so, his cover would be blown, for Snape didn't trust Potter to keep such a secret from his friends. It would be all over the school next Fall – not only was the "overgrown bat" really a bat, but Potter had caged him! Snape shuddered. No, best to wait until Potter removed him from the cage, then make a break for the open window. If Potter left it open. And if the wing was well enough to support his weight. Snape attempted to stretch the injured limb, and, wincing with pain, gave it up as a bad job. _Wonderful. I'm going to be Potter's pet for Merlin only knows how long._

The door opened – Potter had returned. He shut the door, stowed the toothbrush away in his wardrobe, and got into bed, removing his glasses and setting them on the nightstand as he did so, giving Snape a clear view of Lily's brilliant, expressive green eyes, unimpeded by James Potter's glasses.

"Good night, Spartacus," the boy said quietly, switching off the lamp on the nightstand. He settled down in the blankets and was still. Less than fifteen minutes later, Snape heard his breathing change and knew he'd fallen asleep.

With a weary sigh, "Spartacus" made his way over to his food bowl for a meal of apple slices. This was going to be a long convalescence.


	5. Chapter 4

_It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch. Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather's wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind, then fell back into place._

"_SIRIUS!" Harry yelled. "SIRIUS, SIRIUS!"_

_Sirius, was there, just beyond the veil, he knew it, he could save him, he could…but something was holding him back, something was tangling around his legs…a snake, a huge snake, hissing and coiling itself around his ankles and knees, hampering him in his efforts to run to his godfather. He had to get away, he had to – he had to save Sirius!_

"_Sirius! Harry called out in an agony of grief. "Sirius, _Sirius_!"With an almighty wrench, he broke free of the snake's sinuous grasp and lurched forward and down-_

-and landed hard on the bare floor of his bedroom in Privet Drive, the sheet tangled around his legs.

Slowly, Harry sat up. His breath came in short, hard gasps, as though he had been running long and fast. His heart thundered in his ears, and sweat tricked down his face.

_Merlin, Uncle Vernon!_ He thought. _If I woke him up I'm dead-_

Scrambling to his feet, Harry hurried to his bedroom door. Not daring to open it, he leaned against the jamb, listening hard.

After a tense moment, his heartbeat calmed enough to allow him to make out Uncle Vernon's steady snores.

Sighing in relief, Harry returned to his bed and sat down. The light sweat on his body had begun to dry, and he shivered a little. Turning on his bedside lamp, he put on his glasses, then reached for the glass of water on the nightstand, draining it empty.

A faint rustling noise caught Harry's attention, and he turned to look toward Hedwig's cage.

The bat he had rescued from the garden earlier in the day was awake, watching him impassively.

"Hey, Spartacus," Harry said quietly.

The bat simply stared at him, unblinking. Its black eyes glowed in the dim light from the lamp.

Harry looked away first. He glanced at the clock on the shelf that had once been Dudley's, then abandoned to this room after Dudley had thrown it against the wall one morning. Harry had managed to repair it, and it read 2:30 a.m.

Harry leaned forward, elbows on his knees, face in his hands, and brought his thumbs up under his glasses to rub slow circles over his burning eyes. Every night it was the same thing – if it wasn't Sirius, it was Cedric. If it wasn't Cedric, it was Voldemort. The nightmares jerked him out of a sound sleep nightly; sometimes he called out loudly enough to wake Vernon, who would then come storming down the hall to reward his nephew with threats or even blows. Either way, Harry would be done sleeping for the night. This was the earliest a nightmare had awakened him so far. He didn't see how he could go on like this. He'd not be able to keep up with his chores, and that would put Vernon on the rampage. Getting hit was bad, but having the Dursleys' railing at him, jarring him out of his grieving, was even worse.

Harry wished Hedwig were here. Hedwig always seemed to…seemed to _listen_ to him when he talked to her, and he felt badly in need of someone to talk to.

Maybe he should write to Ron or Hermione. Without Hedwig he couldn't send a letter right away, of course, but he could send it with the next owl that came with letters from them. They were such great friends…they'd each already written to him once, and he'd also gotten a note from a very distracted Remus, plus a quick update on Hedwig (healing nicely) from Hagrid. But somehow, Harry didn't want to put his thoughts and feelings about Sirius in a letter. Nor did he especially want to confess to his closest friends (who didn't even know about the prophecy yet) how worried and frightened he was feeling. How fragile and uncertain everything seemed, and how weak he felt.

He missed Hedwig.

With a sigh, Harry switched off the lamp on his bedside table and lay back against his pillow, glasses still on. A light breeze gently parted the curtains, allowing a frail shaft of light from the streetlamp on the corner to beam into the room, illuminating Hedwig's cage with the bat inside it.

From his bed, Harry watched the bat grooming the claws on its left forepaw for a while. Presently, it seemed to feel his gaze on it and looked up at him.

"Hey, Spartacus," Harry said again, keeping his voice soft. "I hope I didn't scare you. Hedwig gets pretty freaked out by my bad dreams sometimes."

The bat just looked at him.

Harry sighed, and turned his eyes to the ceiling. After a moment, he added, in a still quieter voice, "I had a nightmare."

He shifted his gaze back to the bat. It was still watching him.

Harry sat up again, sitting cross-legged in the tangled blankets. "It was…the dream, I mean…about my godfather. He's dead. He got killed." Harry made himself say that, looking down at his knees. When, after a long moment, he looked up, Spartacus was still watching him. The expression in its black eyes was inscrutable, but somehow Harry felt strangely comforted. Unlike Hedwig who, as a wizard's familiar, possessed intelligence far above that of an ordinary owl, this bat was just a dumb animal…but it was a living creature sharing his space, and, more importantly, it wasn't a Dursley.

He had not dared to linger over it when he'd smuggled it into the house earlier the day before; if Aunt Petunia had caught him indoors when he was supposed to be outside working there would have been hell to pay. Harry had hurried swiftly upstairs while his aunt was in the shower, deposited the unconscious bat on the floor of Hedwig's cage, closed the bedroom door behind him, and headed back outdoors. Half an hour later, after Petunia had left to do her shopping, he'd slipped back upstairs to examine the little creature more closely, and see what he could do for it.

In truth, he'd more than half expected it to be dead on his return. A number of times he'd attempted to care for injured birds and even a squirrel or two as a small child – if only to keep Dudley, who could be as cruel to animals as he was to anything weaker and smaller than himself, from tormenting them further. He'd rarely had any success though…particularly with the birds.

When he got back to his room, however, the bat was still alive, lying just where he'd left it on the floor of Hedwig's cage, its tongue lolling between its teeth.

Harry quickly determined that the bloody foam on its snout came from when the creature's teeth had pierced its own tongue, perhaps when it fell. It was not a serious wound, and he left it to heal on its own.

More serious by far was the tear along the joint of its right shoulder, a tear that continued past the shoulder itself and stretched along the membrane of webbing that formed its wing. Harry stared at the wound for a long time. He could not even begin to imagine what had caused such an injury. Not teeth or claws, sure – it was long and even at the surface, while the torn muscle within could have been cut with a serrated blade. The brown hairs along each side of the wound were appeared singed.

Harry gave up trying to figure out the cause of the injury and set to work to repair it. He cleaned it carefully with a cleansing potion, then added a feverfew-and-birch bark salve, coating it carefully. He used a muggle butterfly bandage to hold the gaping wound closed; then, wound gauze over and under the bat's body to hold a sterile pad in place over it. He examined his handiwork and was pleased enough with the results, though unsure if the bat would ever be able to fly again.

Harry used an eye dropper to feed the unconscious animal a few drops of painkiller, then settled it in a small box that had once held Chocolate Frogs, but was now lined with cotton wool. He set the box on his desk while he gave Hedwig's cage a thorough cleaning and lined it with fresh newspaper. Leaving Hedwig's dishes empty, he instead added a pair of small bowls on the floor of the cage, one for food (which he filled with berries he had nicked from the refrigerator), and one with water. To the water he added a few drops of a relaxing infusion meant to calm the creature and enable it to sleep.

After installing the bat in its new home, Harry covered the cage. Since bats are nocturnal creatures, he figured he would keep it covered by day and remove the cover at night. This would encourage the animal to keep to its regular sleep patterns, which was not only healthier, but made it even less likely any of the Dursleys would spot it by accident.

Caring for the bat took about an hour and a half. Harry skipped lunch (a true sacrifice) and worked with all speed on finishing the garden before moving on to his other chores. Fortunately, Petunia was late getting home, and so he was not found to be shirking by either of his guardians. They rewarded this feat by allowing him to have dinner, such as it was (Dudley was dieting again, which meant Harry was, too).

When Harry returned to his room that night after dinner, he was pleasantly surprised to find the bat not only alive, but awake and, apparently, somewhat active. He'd spoken softly to it, but determined to give it some space while it got used to its new surroundings. He was impressed by how calm it appeared – part of him had worried that it would make a fuss, drawing unwanted attention to his room.

Now, at almost three o'clock in the morning, Harry watched it as it sipped nectar from the grapes he'd brought it earlier, drank from its bowl, and began grooming itself thoroughly in an almost cat-like fashion.

When he spoke again, its small ear flickered, but it didn't look up. Somehow, this encouraged Harry to go on talking.

"He got killed…my godfather, I mean," Harry repeated. Spartacus continued to wash his toes. "I think maybe…I mean, I know it's my fault he got killed." Harry paused, thinking hard. He settled back against the pillows.

"Sometimes I think…I think I may have…not been what he wanted in a godson, Spartacus," Harry went on, quietly. The bat paused in its grooming and looked up, but Hary didn't notice at first. "There were times last year when…well, he was…disappointed in me, I think. Because he thinks – thought, I mean – I'm not like my Dad. That made me feel pretty bad, because I wanted to be like my Dad."

The bat sneezed slightly at this, a noise that was somehow derisive, and made a strange, soft, trilling sound. Harry looked up at it.

"It's not even like I _want_ to be like my Dad anymore," he told it. "I…found out last year that my Dad wasn't…at least, not always…what I thought…_hoped_ he might have been like. I was…it was a bit of a letdown, to tell you the truth." Harry sighed, removed his glasses, and turned over on this side. His eyes were wide open, though, and he stared unseeingly at the wall.

After a long time, he said in a near-whisper, "Sirius was the closest thing I had to family. I wanted him to – to be proud of me." He'd almost said _to love me_, but changed it at the last moment. "I think he was…but I never got to spend that much time with him. I think Azkaban left him…a bit unstable, you know, Spartacus?" He glanced in the direction of the cage; with his glasses off he couldn't see much, but it seemed to him that Spartacus had settled down in his nest and was again watching him intently.

Harry felt a bit better, as though some of the huge weight he often felt bearing down on him had lessened slightly. And, wonder of wonders, he also felt very tired – he thought he might even be able to drift off again.

It suddenly occurred to him that if Spartacus was moving around well enough, he might like to roost upside-own when he slept. Resolving to look into rigging something in the cage that would allow the bat to do this the very next day, Harry closed his eyes and let go of all other conscious thought.

"'Night, Spartacus," he mumbled.

Long after he was asleep, the bat sat and watched over him unblinkingly.


	6. Chapter 5

Snape was fuming. Of all the things he'd had to put up with in both his career as a teacher _and_ as a spy, this was the limit. Potter's pet. Potter's _pet_, of all things!

The thought of the look on Dumbledore's face when the old wizard found out about this was maddening.

It was 6:30 in the morning. The potions master-turned-bat could hear movement in a distant room as someone, presumably the boy's uncle, began to prepare for the day head. The boy himself had not awakened again after the nightmare that had sent him to the floor earlier this morning, jerking Snape out of his meditations. The one-sided conversation during the small hours had seemed to ease him greatly, and Potter had slept without stirring the rest of the night.

Snape paused in his awkward, limited pacing to look toward the teenager's bed. A tuft of black hair was all that was visible from one end of the jumbled mound of blankets.

Snape had heard a rumor that Potter suffered from frequent nightmares, but of course, not being the boy's head of house, he had never witnessed him having one. He had been alarmed by the violence of the boy's thrashings, and surprised at his obvious fear that one of the other inmates of the house had heard him.

_Gryffindor pride,_ Snape thought scathingly. _Too proud to seek comfort from his family._

Then he remembered the short, pitiful cry that had first drawn his attention to the fact that Potter's dreams were far from sweet and felt, in spite of himself, a little ashamed. The boy had tried to help him, and, he was forced to grudgingly admit, had done an admirable job. As misplaced as his grief might be, it was obvious he was truly hurting over the death of Sirius Black, though why the boy would choose not to turn to his family for comfort, Snape could not guess.

A flurry of sharp raps on the door made Snape jump. Glancing swiftly at Potter, he saw that the boy, too, had jerked awake, popping straight up, his myopic, wary green eyes fixed on the door.

"Aren't you up yet?!" Petunia's screechy voice knifed through Snape's aching head. "Your uncle will be downstairs in ten minutes; why isn't breakfast ready?!"

Potter scrambled out of bed and lunged for the pair of jeans he'd left on the floor the night before.

"Down in a minute, Aunt Petunia!" the boy called, trying to sound brisk and ready (and failing utterly, in Snape's opinion) as he stripped off his pajamas.

Petunia's sharp, quick footsteps could be heard retreating down the hall outside the door. Potter swiftly pulled on his jeans and grabbed a t-shirt. As he turned to make a grab for his glasses, he noticed the cage.

"Hey, Spartacus," the boy mumbled distractedly. "I'll take care of you in a bit…just hang on, OK?"

Glasses on, the boy left the room, still barefoot, and pulled the door shut behind him. A moment later, Snape heard his feet padding down a flight of stairs.

Snape sat back in his cotton bed, feeling…perplexed.

Was this a daily occurrence? Surely not…his superior bat's hearing could make out the snores of the cousin in a nearby room. Perhaps preparing breakfast for his aunt and uncle on certain days was a chore assigned to Potter. Maybe the boy made a habit of oversleeping, which was why his aunt had sounded so irritable (not that Snape remembered her sounding anything _but_ irritable in his childhood).

Still, Snape was surprised the savior of the wizarding world was not as coddled as he'd first thought. His guardians were apparently attempting to instill _some_ measure of responsibility into him, however unsuccessful at it they might be. _Good_.

These thoughts, along with the scant claustrophobia of his confined quarters, swept away the faint feelings of sympathy for Potter that had been creeping into his breast like a broom sweeps away loose cobwebs. He felt a sudden surge of anger, along with a savage satisfaction that the boy had been dragged out of bed early and scolded into the bargain. Suddenly, even the boy's careful care of him seemed more indicative of a teen who wanted to cause chaos in his family home rather than a compassionate, soft-hearted youth intent on healing a suffering fellow creature. Potter probably wanted to show off his "cool" new pet to his nasty little friends.

Perhaps when Potter tended to his injuries Snape could try to escape. He tried lifting his right forepaw, but winced, realizing it would never hold his weight. He had no choice but to wait until he had healed…unless he transformed. The idea of frightening the wits out of the boy – and embarrassing him utterly with the memory of their "conversation" last night – by turning back into a human was appealing, but he simply did not trust Potter not to blow his cover. He wondered if the boy had spilled the beans yet about what he had seen in the Pensieve last year.

There was nothing for it. He had to stay in this form and allow Potter to help him.

_It did have to be Potter who found me,_ Snape thought bitterly. _Still, I suppose it could have been worse._

He suddenly found himself imagining what might have happened had that bubble-headed Gryffindor girl, Lavender Brown, found him instead. The ditzy chit probably would have given him a bath in rosewater and tried to force him into a small argyle jumper.

This thought (along with the memory of the Pensieve incident) enraged Snape and, although Harry Potter had shown no inclination whatever to dress him up like a doll, his anger at the boy – at the whole situation –increased irrationally. He even found the comfortable bed Potter had made for him infuriating, and so began tearing it to bits with his sharp little teeth and claws.

_I may not be able to take points, but if Potter tries treating me like a toy, I will bite him,_ Snape thought viciously as he shredded his way through the cotton wool right down to the cardboard. For a moment he felt ashamed by the idea – _I'm not _really_ a wild bat!_ – then absurdly pleased.

* * *

It had been a tense morning. Aunt Petunia was livid that he'd almost overslept. Harry was just thankful that she woke him in time…if Uncle Vernon had gotten downstairs before him, there would have been hell to pay.

His being late to cook breakfast for his aunt and uncle before Uncle Vernon left for work had not been an issue so far this summer – his nightmares had kept him from sleeping deeply so it took little to wake him, and more often than not he was already awake anyway by the time he heard the shower turn on in the master bathroom down the hall. Last night had been the first time he'd been able to get back to sleep after a bad dream, and he'd slept deeply. Thinking of this, he felt a vague sort of gratitude toward the living creature that now shared his room.

Now that Vernon was gone to work, Petunia occupied with getting ready for the day, and Dudley (who rarely got up before lunch) still asleep, he could tend to his new pet. The sooner the better – he was sure that Spartacus, a nocturnal animal, would be wanting to sleep. Plus, he imagined the bat would be in pain…perhaps hungry, too, so after a quick trip to the garden shed for some supplies and a stop in the kitchen for a small bowl of hot, soapy water, he headed back upstairs.

Harry slipped into his room, shutting the door behind him. "Hey Spartacus," he called softly. "I brought you some break- whoa!"

Spartacus was standing in the middle of a tumbled pile of shredded cotton and cardboard in the middle of Hedwig's cage. The look on his small, fox-like face was decidedly pissy.

"Well…uh, I guess it's a good thing I brought you this," Harry said after a bemused look at the angry bat. He set the roll of chicken wire he'd retrieved from the garden shed down on the desk and approached the cage cautiously.

"I guess I'd better take a look at that wing first…you going to be OK with letting me take you out of there for a bit?" Cautiously, Harry opened the door to the cage and reached in hesitantly. Spartacus did not seem thrilled to see Harry's hands coming towards him, but he did not scurry away, cower, or try to snap either, and Harry took that as a good sign. He slipped his hands under the bat and carefully lifted him out.

To his great surprise, Spartacus was perfectly passive, allowing Harry to carry him over to the bed. Harry marveled at the light creature, so large for a bat…he guessed it weighed just under two pounds, and at just under a foot long was somewhere over a third of Hedwig's length.

Harry set Spartacus down on the foot of his bed, then, after listening at the door to make sure no one was moving around, pried up the loose floorboard to reveal the compartment where he hid his more important items – his cloak, wand, photo album and kit of healing potions. Pulling the latter item from the hole, then retrieving a first aid kit from under the bed, he picked the bat up again and sat down on the bed, settling the creature onto his lap.

While he worked, Harry kept up a steady stream of conversation, hoping his calm voice would soothe and reassure the wild animal. He figured it didn't matter what he said; Hagrid had told him once that animals responded to a voice, not words.

"Don't worry, I'm not half-bad at this," he said conversationally, clipping away the gauze bandages with a pair of small, sharp scissors. "I'm not even that bad at potions, either, though my professor would probably tell you different. It's true my marks are pretty mediocre in his class, but it's hard for me to concentrate sometimes because he makes me nervous, hovering over me and all. I don't think I did half-bad on my potions O.W.L." Gingerly, he lifted the cotton padding away from the wound, careful not to tug at it in case it stuck and started the bleeding again.

"I guess my mum was really good at potions when she was in school," Harry continued. "She was good at charms, too. I wish I'd gotten some of her brains…my O.W.L. results are due any day now, and Snape's already told us he won't take anyone into his N.E.W.T.-level class who gets less than an 'Outstanding' on the O.W.L." Harry carefully cleansed the wound with an antiseptic. "Sorry if that stings. You don't have to worry; I didn't brew that one…I nicked it from Snape's stores."

The bat stirred slightly under his ministering hand. Harry figured it was suffering a twinge of pain. "Anyway, I need to take potions if I'm to be an auror, but at the same time I wouldn't mind not having class with Snape anymore. Greasy git! My friend Ron and I figure he hasn't washed his hair since 19-"

CHOMP.

Harry leapt to his feet with a yell that was part pain, part surprise as the tiny fangs sank into the ball of his thumb. Flinging his hand out roughly, he shook the bat loose.

For a moment he stood shaking the wounded hand and swearing quietly but frenziedly.

"What did you do that for?" Harry demanded furiously as he swung round to the bed – then froze in astonishment.

He had expected the bat to be either cowering down or attempting to scurry away, but it was doing neither. Instead, it was standing on three legs at the foot of his bed, holding the sore paw up off of the blankets, glaring up at him. For a moment, Harry thought it had a decidedly smug look on its sharp-featured little face.

Like twin onyx stones, the black eyes glittered up at him, and briefly a memory brushed against Harry's mind –

_Late again, Potter? Five points from Gryffindor!_

-but was gone before he latched onto it.

Harry shook his head to clear it, then looked down at his thumb. It wasn't deep, but bites could be serious, so he figured he'd better clean and tend it.

He'd finish taking care of the bat first, though.

"I guess I must have touched a sore spot, huh?" Picking the bat back up gingerly in case it should take it into its head to bite him again, Harry reseated himself on the bed. Leaning to one side, he began rifling through his potions kit.

His hand hesitated over the bottle of essence of murtlap.

When Hermione had introduced him to this potion last year to ease the pain of Umbridge's sadistic detentions, Harry had privately planned to bring some to Privet Drive with him. It would be just the thing to use after a session with his uncle's belt. He could imagine how cooling the mixture would feel to the fiery welts, bruises and broken skin that instrument of punishment left on his back.

There wasn't a lot in the bottle, though – what with O.W.L.'s and the fiasco at the ministry, he hadn't had time to have Hermione show him how to brew more, nor had he been able to find all the ingredients in Snape's storeroom.

He looked from the bottle to the bat, considering.

The suffering creature needed relief now. He, on the other hand, was relatively fine, apart from a few bruises. Vernon had not yet come down on him very hard this summer, and with any luck Harry might manage to avoid such a scenario altogether (he ignored the voice at the back of his mind that said this was unlikely). And who knew? He might get liberated from Privet Drive long before that happened if Dumbledore –

But he pushed the thought of Dumbledore aside. It hurt too much to think of the wizard he idolized just now.

Mind made up, he pulled out the bottle of essence of murtlap. The bat wouldn't need much; there was still plenty left over for him. He applied a few drops to a cotton pad and applied it to the wounded shoulder.

A moment later and Harry was glad he'd decided to use it when he felt Spartacus's muscles relax under his hands.

Quickly, Harry rebandaged the torn shoulder, then set Spartacus on the bed again and stood up. He swiftly but efficiently cleaned out Hedwig's cage, changing the newspaper and removing every last bit of the destroyed bed. He then began fitting the chicken wire in the cage, securing it to one side of the cage with wire and forming it into a kind of canopy at the top of the cage. The bat watched these proceedings intently from his spot on Harry's bed.

"There you go, Spartacus," Harry exclaimed proudly, standing back. "You should have no trouble climbing around on that, even with your hurt shoulder."

Harry changed the water in the water bowl, then added a few strawberries to the food bowl.

"Full of vitamin C," he explained, picking the bat up and carrying him back to the cage. "It will help you heal, so try to eat it all today, OK?"

He settled Spartacus inside, closed the door to the cage, then stood back and waited to see what would happen.

Spartacus took a drink. He nibbled at a berry. Then, casually, he shuffled on his awkward bat feet to the side of the cage where Harry had tacked up the chicken wire and examined it carefully.

"Yes!" Harry exclaimed, pleased, as the bat climbed slowly up the chicken wire on the side of the cage to the canopy at the top and suspended itself head down, folding its wings around it like a cloak.

Harry grinned as Spartacus looked at him, upside down, from impassive black eyes. Then he reached for the blue canvas he used as a cover for the cage.

"You get some sleep, Spartacus," Harry said encouragingly as the bat folded its wings over its head. He covered the cage. "I'll see you tonight."

Grabbing some fresh clothes and his toothbrush, Harry headed to the bathroom, shutting the bedroom door behind him. He'd have to hurry – he was already behind on his chores.


	7. Chapter 6

It was strange, Snape mused, how a position that could be so uncomfortable and unpleasant when one was in the form of a man could be so comfortable and restful when one had assumed the shape of a bat. But that was part of being an animagus – while the clarity of thinking that was uniquely human remained (albeit in a slightly different, less complex form), the physical needs, instincts, weaknesses and strengths of the animal held forth. Thus, Snape was completely comfortable and at rest while swinging upside-down with his hind claws hooked securely in the chicken wire canopy that Potter had installed in the owl cage.

Snape had fully expected Potter to strike him, or perhaps seize him and toss him out of the bedroom window when Snape bit him. In retrospect, he supposed that biting the boy had not been…civilized. Had Potter reacted the way Snape had expected him to, he might have hurt Snape worse, or even killed him. Snape's emotions were much quicker and closer to the surface as a bat, and he vowed to himself to be more cautious in guarding them from now on.

Still, it had turned out all right. The boy had exhibited a remarkable level of restraint – Snape had to admit that he himself would not have been nearly so patient. He wondered with grim amusement how Potter's reaction might have differed had he known precisely who it was that had bitten him. As it was, Snape was slightly ashamed of himself for his childish show of temper, both in biting the boy and destroying the bed Potter had so carefully made for him.

The canvas covering Potter used to cover his owl's cage did not fit properly; the top fastening around the tapered top of the cage met with no difficulty, but the bottom snap did not quite reach, leaving a slight gap of about an inch in the front of the lower portion of the cage – enough to block out most of the light, but still allow him to see out. Judging by the sunlight filtering in, Snape guessed it to be about mid-morning. The boy had returned once, his hair wet from the shower. He had not addressed Snape at all, obviously thinking his new pet was asleep, but simply dressed himself and left the room again.

Swinging gently in the drowsy warmth and quiet of the forsaken room, enjoying the relief from pain the boy's ministrations had given him, Snape found his mind dwelling over the circumstances in which he had found Potter – so different from what he had expected.

Was this how normal families interacted?

Snape wouldn't know. His own family had been far from normal.

Settling his wings more comfortably around himself, he felt only a slight twinge in the shoulder Potter had bathed in essence of murtlap. The boy had been gentle, and done a good job, Snape had to admit. And picking up a wounded animal in order to try to heal it…that was something Lily would have done.

Snape had felt animosity towards Harry Potter long before he had ever laid eyes on the boy. Like Snape himself, Harry was one more unwitting instrument in his mother's death. If it weren't for him, Lily would still be alive.

_If it weren't for me, Lily would still be alive,_ Snape thought. He said it to himself periodically as a sort of self-torture. The pain of it was as fresh all these years after the fact as it had been on the night it had happened. In some ways it was worse, as he had been numb in the days immediately following Lily's murder.

Harry Potter was a constant reminder to Snape of his own betrayal. He protected the boy for Lily's sake and resented him for James's. Perhaps if he had resembled Lily more closely…but then, looking into the boy's green eyes brought Snape so much pain it was hard to tell. Looking at Harry confused him, there was no doubt about it – on the one hand, he craved the pain and yearning those eyes always evoked even as he shrank from it; on the other hand, he hated that the boy so closely resembled his father in so many other ways, his untidy black hair, skinny build and glasses a constant reminder of the bully who'd made his school days a living hell.

Lily used to tell him that he could avoid a lot of trouble by not taking things so seriously, by being less thin-skinned. It was true he had been a very defensive, sullen boy – was, in fact, a defensive man, skeptical of most people's sincerity. But as a boy he had regarded every new face as a potential enemy's; every laugh as a possible joke at his expense. Except for Lily, everyone, from Dumbledore down to the youngest first-year, he had regarded with suspicion and distrust. Lily was the only one who could lightheartedly tease him and get away with it, like a friend.

Even his fellow Death Eaters had not been friends.

There were only three people in the world whom Snape had ever loved, and two of them were dead: Lily Evans and his mother. His father he had not loved. He had hated Tobias Snape for his drunkenness, shiftlessness, and cruelty. He had been ashamed of him for his crassness, intolerance and ignorance. He had feared the man's ugly temper that revealed itself again and again to both his mother and himself in cruel words and savage blows. His father, Tobias Snape, had been the first bully Severus had ever known.

Throughout his time at Hogwarts, Snape had done everything he could to distance himself from his father. In his fear that he would grow to be like him, he threw himself into becoming the man's opposite. Tobias Snape was ignorant and roughly spoken; his son dedicated himself to his studies, spoke softly if at all, and worked to refine his speech and expand his vocabulary. Tobias Snape was crude in his manners and sloppy in his dress; his son behaved with careful correctness and kept his clothes somber and impeccable. Tobias Snape was a brutish man who took pride in his physical prowess; his son scorned athleticism, instead perfecting his dueling techniques, broadening his mind through books, and disdaining blows (though he had no compunctions against cutting his victims to ribbons verbally).

Snape learned early to associate all that was ugly in his father with muggles. His Sorting into Slytherin House was perhaps inevitable: his father was a muggle, his mother a pureblood witch. He had hated the one and loved the other; therefore, it was better to be a pureblood wizard than a muggle. He'd grown up, poor and abused, in a muggle neighborhood where the muggle children tormented and despised him; as a defense mechanism he had learned to rely on his magic as proof that he was special, better, set apart not for being the son of a drunken wastrel, but because he was the son of a pureblooded witch.

By the time young Snape had entered muggle primary school, he had the demeanor of a kicked cur that expects nothing but cruel tricks and blows, and reacts to every kindness with suspicion. Except with Lily, of course. Lily, with her beauty, fire, bravery and compassion, had always seemed like an angel to Snape, an idealized being above and apart from other mortals. His feelings for her were a mix between reverent and obsessive, tender and jealous. It was love, certainly, but not a boyish love, or even a love shared by many adults. Snape's love was channeled into very few outlets, and where he allowed it to flow, it flooded.

In the end, however, not even his love for Lily had the power over him that his desire to be strong and powerful – a desire born of the weakness he felt before his overbearing father – had had. Lily could make him do many things, but she could not make him give up the Death Eaters, and despite her forgiving nature, the day came when she could no longer condone his association with them, either. Their friendship had ended, and Snape knew that this was his fault. Whether or not she could or would have returned his love in the way he had wanted her to had he followed a different path, he would never know, and this, too, tormented him…the thought that he might have unwittingly driven her into James Potter's arms.

And being a Death Eater had not given Snape the sense of belonging he had always longed for. They were different than he was from the very beginning: while he did enjoy taking revenge on his tormentors (Potter and Black, for instance), he never enjoyed hurting others in the sadistic way his cohorts did. The cries of the victims reminded him too much of the cries of the abused boy he had been for his comfort, and while he did not exactly pity them, he took part in such dark sport as little as he dared. Nor did he crave power for power's sake: his desire for power ended with his desire to have no one dominate him, as his father once had.

The ironic thing was that someone did hold power over him now – and it was not Voldemort, for all Snape posed as his ally. Even when he had truly been a Death Eater, Snape had never really belonged to Voldemort. He had admired the dark lord, looked up to him as a symbol of freedom and strength, feared him, but never fawned over him as the others had. Had never loved him.

No, the one person who truly held power over Snape was Albus Dumbledore, and Dumbledore only held that position because he was the third person Snape loved. In his early youth, he had admired and feared the older wizard even as he had admired and feared Voldemort. After he had returned to the light, he had been grateful for the man's acceptance and his intervention that had kept him out of Azkaban, but had not credited it to more than Dumbledore's need of him. As the years went on, however, he came to realize that, in truth, Dumbledore's integrity would not have allowed the great wizard to give Snape a job, protect him and rely on him, if he had hated and despised him. He had come to realize that the old man loved him, Snape, as a son, just as he was, with all his failures and frailties. This knowledge ignited Snape's regard into the fierce love of a son for a father he adores and idolizes, a father he knows he can never measure up to. No one could hurt Snape or make him feel ashamed or rebuke him and get away with it apart from Albus Dumbledore, and the old wizard knew it.

Dumbledore had the power to make people love him, and the fact that the old man would use that love to make others do what he wanted them to do, in the manner of a benign dictator, did not change the fact that he returned the love to those who gave it with utmost sincerity and even enthusiasm. Snape knew Dumbledore used him, and while he vaguely resented it at times, he also knew that the man truly loved him and worried over him as a son, and this was enough to make Snape want to do everything the old man asked and more.

This was, perhaps one more reason – though he would never admit it even to himself – that Snape disliked Potter: jealousy. Dumbledore loved Potter, too, with a reverence that resembled an Old World Italian sailor's reverence for his image of the infant Messiah, and Snape knew that, however deeply the old man cared for him, he would never love Snape with that same, tender intensity. It was for this reason that Snape could not keep himself from cataloging the boy's flaws to Dumbledore every chance he had. He could not seem to refrain from doing it even when he knew the older wizard could see it for what it was – the sneering, sibling rivalry of a jealous older brother toward a new member of the family. And it was so easy for him to believe the worst of Potter – from the first day he laid eyes on him back in the boy's first year, he had seen what he believed to be a reincarnation of James: a boy who looked just like his bullying father and was already hailed as a hero by his classmates for something he couldn't even remember.

In truth, though, Draco Malfoy in his behaviorisms reminded him more of the elder Potter than his former tormentor's own son ever did, apart from the pureblood mania. Harry himself, Gryffindor as he was, still retained a hesitancy in his demeanor, a kind of wistful longing for approval and eagerness to please that his father had never had. Snape refused to see these traits as coming from Lily and instead chose to believe that the boy was a consummate actor. Indeed, his classroom persecutions were in part the result of an almost desperate need in himself to corner Potter into living up to Snape's expectations, to force him to assume the role Snape thought he should be playing.

This house, though…was hard to ignore. The Spartan room, the sharp-tongued aunt, the surly uncle, the bullying cousin…no, none of it was what he had expected at all. None of it bore out his beliefs in the slightest.

Snape brooded over this. The answer was there before him, as simple as two and two make four…but he didn't want two and two to make four in this case. Was there no alternative answer?

Still brooding, he fell asleep.

* * *

He was startled out of a deep slumber by the sound of loud voices, muffled by the door and distance.

Twisting his head up, Snape hesitated, then climbed down his chicken wire ladder to the floor of the cage and peered out through the gap in the cover.

Dusk had fallen; the room was shrouded in a half-light. He could smell cooking from the lower floor – pork chops, he thought.

There was a sudden clatter, it might have been a chair falling over on a tiled floor, then Dursley's rough voice rose in an angry shout:

"Useless…worthless…abnormal…_freak_–!"

Snape winced involuntarily at a sudden crashing sound, as though something heavy had hit the kitchen table; he could hear the plates rattling.

There was a moment of silence, then the sudden pounding of feet coming up the stairs. From below stairs, Dursley's voice, sounding closer now:

"And stay up there! No meals for you tomorrow, or the next day either!"

The door flew open and Potter burst into the room, his color high. In his left hand he held his glasses. His right hand was over his nose, blood seeping through his fingers. Breathing hard, the boy furiously kicked his desk chair out of the way and flung himself down on the foot of the bed. His green eyes snapped with anger.

Before Snape could properly take it in, there were more footsteps coming up the stairs – lighter ones this time. Potter got to his feet as the door opened and his aunt came in, carrying a rag filled with something – ice, it looked like.

Petunia handed the ice pack over to her nephew, who put down his glasses in order to take it.

"Here. Use that to stop the bleeding. Don't get any blood on the floor," she said, her voice clipped and hard, but shaking a little nonetheless.

"Thanks," Potter said tonelessly, somewhat indistinctly behind his hand.

Petunia hesitated, her hand on the door, then turned back to face her nephew.

"_Why_ must you set him off?" She demanded in a harsh whisper that was somehow pleading as well. Her grey eyes looked miserable, angry and upset all at once.

Potter protested at this. "I didn't _say_ anything, not a word!"

She cut him off. "It was that _look_, you know it was! You can't leave well enough alone–"

Potter's voice rose, too. "He started in on me, slamming my parents, criticizing the way I do my chores and you know I don't slack off, and I'm supposed to just stay quiet and–"

"That's enough!" Petunia cried. She bit her lip, then said a little more calmly, "Just do as you're told, no backtalk and no defiance, and for God's sake, try to stay out of Vernon's way!"

She turned back to the bedroom door, paused again, then added without heat, her back still to the boy:

"It's the least you can do, isn't it, after all we've done for you? It's not like we were even given a choice about taking you in."

She left, pulling the door shut behind her. Snape heard the sound of a lock clicking home.

Potter stood still for a moment, then went back to the bed. He sat down, leaned forward, and gingerly pressed the ice pack to the bridge of his nose. He laid his other hand along the back of his neck – an obvious expert at stopping nosebleeds, Snape thought.

For maybe twenty minutes, the only sound in the room was Potter's breathing, gradually becoming calmer.

Finally, the boy stood up. The bleeding had stopped. He dumped the ice into a plastic bucket he pulled from under his desk, wiped his face and hands clean with the damp cloth, and laid it over the edge of the bucket. When he turned to face the window, Snape saw that his nose was swollen, and there was a hand-shaped bruise forming along one cheekbone.

After a moment of pensive silence, Potter suddenly seemed to notice the cage. He came over and removed the cover.

"Hey, Spartacus," he said softly.

For a long time, Snape and the boy gazed at each other. Finally, Potter spoke.

"I'm sorry, Spartacus…I'm afraid I don't have anything for you to eat tonight. I hope you got enough earlier."

He paused a moment, then added, "Tomorrow…I'll feed you tomorrow, somehow."

Then he went to the bed and laid down, facing the wall.

He made no sound at all.


	8. Chapter 7

Now, finally, the truth.

Petunia's words had put a definitive end to any hope Snape might have held that the bloody nose could have been a result of a boyish altercation between Potter and the oversized cousin

He could deceive himself no longer.

Indeed, with the evidence right in front of his eyes, Snape wondered how he had managed to avoid seeing it for so long. True, there had never been any evidence of brutality like this. Dumbledore had implied that the Sorting Hat had considered Potter for Slytherin (_how James would have turned over in this grave had that happened!_), and in true Slytherin fashion, Potter obviously knew how to keep his mouth shut where it counted…or where the misguided boy _thought_ it counted, at any rate.

Snape had seen the tight, disapproving expression on Molly Weasley's face at Headquarters when the subject of Potter's family, however briefly, came up. He had heard Minerva McGonagall describe them as the "worst sort of muggles imaginable." He had noted the fact that Potter never returned to Little Whinging at all between September and June. He had even registered Potter's scarcity of owls in the Great Hall during breakfast. With a troubled expression on his face, Dumbledore had said once, in Snape's hearing, that he regretted that the boy was neither "as well nor as happy as I had hoped he would be in the care of Lily's sister."

And then there had been that nasty, drawling comment from Draco in the boys' first-year potions class:

"_I do feel so sorry for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home!"_

The eleven-year-old Potter had not seemed in the least perturbed by this barb, and Snape had dismissed it from his mind without a second thought.

Neglect, certainly…that was what the other wizarding adults in Potter's life had seemed to think. Fear, perhaps even resentment. Too many chores and too little food. Too little love. Snape had dismissed all these somber comments from staff and Order members alike, chalking it up to an unfathomable desire on the parts of hope-hungry wizards to coddle and protect the Boy-Who-Lived.

And now he knew that, even with the way they watched the boy, indulged him and revered him and fussed over him by turns, none of them had suspected physical abuse: not Molly with her overabundance of maternal solicitude, not Minerva, his head of house, not Filius with his sharp and penetrating mind, not even Poppy Pomfrey, who had to patch Potter up in the infirmary at least once a term.

No, not even Dumbledore, who had so much on his plate, and who so badly wanted things to be all right that sometimes he missed the obvious.

Snape thought he might have been able to spot it had he been looking – his own experiences as a child and a teacher make him a good candidate – and the fact that he had not disturbed and upset him.

The thought of what Lily would feel if she could have seen her son an hour ago – stoically nursing a bloody nose with a calm, weary indifference that was frightening in its implications, felt like blunt claws drawn quickly over his heart, leaving blood-welling grooves in their wake.

_Why_ had he never seen anything like this in the boy's memories over the previous year?

There was, of course, the possibility that such violence was a recent development. Neglect and harshness, yes, but if Potter had been abused all along, surely he would have been Sorted into Snape's own house, or perhaps Filius's or Pomona's? Of the four houses, Snape's was the most likely to receive battered children who had early learned the art of self-preservation. Flitwick and Sprout were about even in being home to the rest – those that tended to escape reality in books gravitated toward Ravenclaw, while the broken-spirited ones wound up in Hufflepuff. Very rarely was a battered child placed in Gryffindor.

_But this is Potter, after all, _Snape thought sourly,_ the boy who lives to be the exception to every rule._

Even this internal jibe at the boy was half-hearted, so shaken was he by what he had witnessed.

He looked toward the bed. Potter appeared to be asleep, his eyes closed, his breathing deep and even. Without his glasses, his resemblance to Lily was more pronounced, the high cheekbones offsetting James's thin face. The good blood in his heritage showed, emphasized somehow by the ugly black bruise that marred his cheek like a raven's wing.

Snape desperately wanted to believe that Dursley's rough treatment was something new – the Dementor attack on his son last summer might have pushed him over the edge, perhaps. Possibly he had taken to drink like Snape's own father. Or maybe his business had slowed, and here was Potter, a ready scapegoat on which to vent his frustrations.

But as much as he wanted to believe it, there was the boy's own demeanor to give the lie to this theory. He had been upset, certainly, but not as upset as he should have been had this been new, Snape thought. And instead of fear, he had exhibited only anger and frustration. There was no shock or surprise in his face when he went about cleaning himself up; only a methodical care in stopping the bleeding and removing all traces of blood without dripping any on the floor or bed.

In short, he had behaved exactly as Snape himself had behaved at his age after a dose of his father's fists: as if this was all a part of the routine of being at home.

As for the disastrous Occlumency lessons of last year – there was an answer there, too, albeit not a happy one: even a natural Occlumens, if he has enough intense experiences, cannot hide everything. Snape himself, as powerful an Occlumens as one could find apart from Dumbledore and Voldemort himself, had been unable to prevent Potter from glimpsing _some_ of his memories on that one memorable occasion (this was why he had removed the more painful ones he wished to keep guarded to the Pensieve). Could it be that Potter had managed to bury memories of physical abuse beneath the intensity of his memories of Black being attacked by Dementors, of Diggory being slaughtered without mercy in the graveyard?

A sudden, intense, and totally unexpected wave of pity for the boy suddenly took Snape by surprise. He looked toward the bed again. There was something heartbreaking in Potter's face just then. Often he looked much younger than his fifteen years, but in this terrible moment he seemed older, and there was something in his expression that made him look every inch the grave, serious man he would become, bearing burdens greater than most men carry – than most men ever _have_ to carry, let alone most boys – burdens on his narrow shoulders that made a smack from his uncle, Snape guessed, seem like the least of his worries.

If Potter had had to endure years of abuse, then he'd done it without a single complaint and without giving any of it away. Weasley, Snape knew, would never have been able to keep it from Granger, and Granger would have felt it her bounden duty (as indeed it would have been) to inform a teacher. Potter weak? There was greater strength here than Snape had ever guessed.

He settled down on the floor of the cage, feeling bruised and broken inside as well as out – his preconceived notions about Harry Potter shattering one by one.

The question was…what would he do about it? What now?

For now he could do nothing but watch, wait and heal.

Speaking of healing…he wondered if Dursley was serious about depriving the boy of food for two days. If Potter couldn't feed him, Snape's health would suffer. He was bound by the physical laws of the body he was in, and bats require a great deal of food to fuel their lightning-fast metabolisms. His would not be quite so fast at the moment, seeing as how he wasn't burning enormous amounts of energy through flying, but it was still fast enough…particularly while his body was knitting from his injuries.

Potter had promised he would get him food, and from what Snape had experienced at the boy's hands thus far, he believed he would try.

He only hoped Potter would not suffer for the attempt.

* * *

_Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap._

Snape was pulled out of his reverie by a persistent tapping on the window pane. Awakened by the sound, Potter sat up and looked toward its source. A miniscule, fluffy ball of gray feathers was peering in at him, hooting excitedly.

Potter leaped to his feet, his face lighting up and chasing the shadows from his face so swiftly that the illusion of early, somber manhood was broken, and Snape saw an eager boy in his place.

"It's from Ron!" Potter exclaimed, and hurried to the window. He threw wide the sash, and the feathery little gray owl zoomed into the room, chirping delightedly at having completed its mission. A thick envelope was tied to its feet, throwing it off balance as it flew.

"Look, Spartacus…Errol's here, too!" Potter reached into the branches of the tree just outside his window and drew in a large, very elderly owl that looked exhausted, and no wonder – a bulky parcel was tied to its feet. Potter set the owl down on his bed and began liberating it of its package. It hooted feebly at him in appreciation.

Meanwhile, the tiny, hyperactive owl collided with Snape's cage with a loud _clang_ and began bobbing around it like a bee on a flower, hooting nonstop. Snape glared at it in disgust, his lip curled.

"Here! C'mon, Pig, cut that out. Don't upset Spartacus; he's had a rough time. Let me see what Ron sent with you." Potter caught the small owl in his hand and untied the letter from its feet.

_Pig? _Snape thought incredulously._ Why would that dunderheaded Weasley name an owl like that "Pig?"_

Potter tore open the letter and began to read. Snape could not have said why the joyous look on the boy's bruised face should have made his heart hurt so, but it did.

Still smiling, Potter set the letter down on his desk and turned to the package, using a short pocketknife with multiple blades to slit it open.

"Whoa, thanks, Mrs. Weasley!" He grinned and turned to Snape. "Spartacus, we've got a reprieve…Mrs. Weasley sent food. The meat pies you won't have any use for, I know, but there are some fruit tarts here with your name on 'em!"

There was a note card in the box, too, Snape noticed – the kind that was blank inside with flowers on the front that witches liked to dash quick notes off on. Potter opened it, and as he read, his smile stayed steady, but turned somehow sad and wistful. Without a word he set it aside.

"OK, Pig, I have a letter here ready for you to take to Ron. Do you want to stay over and rest or do you want to get started back?" Potter asked, pulling an envelope out of his desk drawer.

"Pig" immediately fluttered onto Potter's arm, and the boy tied the letter to its feet. With a quick, affectionate nip to the boy's wrist, it soared out of the window.

"Errol, I'm not even going to ask you if you want to stay over, because I think you should," the boy said, lifting the older owl to his desk. He poured the remainder of his habitual nighttime glass of water into one of Hedwig's bowls, which he'd removed from the cage to give Snape more room. To the other bowl he added a few owl treats. The owl hooted gratefully and ate and drank deeply.

When it had finished, Potter asked it, "Do you think you could sleep in the tree outside? Spartacus is using Hedwig's cage right now, and somehow I don't think he'd appreciate the company!" The boy looked toward the cage with a grin.

_Too right!_ Snape thought irritably.

Carefully, the boy lifted the frail bird out through the window, depositing it gently on a thick branch. It hooted again and immediately put its head under its wing. Snape was sure he could hear the feathery mess snoring almost immediately.

Potter took up the letter from Ron Weasley, flung himself down on the bed in the manner of a teenager ready to relax, and read it through again twice. Then he folded it and set it on the nightstand within easy reach and leaned back with his arms folded behind his head, eyes on the ceiling. Snape was surprised by how pleased he looked.

After a moment, Potter lowered his eyes to Snape again.

"A three-page letter…that's pretty good for Ron, Spartacus," the boy admitted with a slight smile. "He'd be the first to tell you he's not much of a letter-writer. I hear from him maybe once a week over the summers, though. He makes an effort to write because he knows it's…well, not exactly fun for me here. Hermione writes even more, like every other day. I'll probably hear from her tomorrow."

He paused for a few minutes, thinking hard, his brow furrowed in a way that reminded Snape distinctly of Lily concentrating over a particularly tricky transfiguration essay.

"I've got great friends," Potter said finally. "I can really count on them, you know?"

He rolled over onto his side, still facing Snape.

"And Ron's mum…she's been brilliant, too. When Dudley started dieting the summer before last, she started sending me food. She's kept it up, too. I'm really grateful, because I know they haven't much money and all that. She knows, I think…I've never told her, but I think she knows that making me miss meals is one of my aunt and uncle's favorite ways of punishing me."

He was quiet a moment, then sat up suddenly, feet on the bed and knees drawn up. He wrapped his arms around his folded legs and rested his chin on his knees. His restless eyes moved to Snape's steady ones again.

"You know, Spartacus…Ron's a really great friend, in a lot of ways. They only time anything really comes between us is when…well, he feels…jealous of me sometimes."

Potter paused, thinking hard.

"I wish he wouldn't," he went on slowly. "He shouldn't, I mean…I have money, for all the good it does me." His eyes flickered around the room, taking in the battered furniture and bare walls. "Ron hates feeling…poor. And he hates being the youngest of so many brothers."

He was silent again, then in a whisper: "I'd trade with him, though. In a minute."

Potter leaned back against the headboard again, letting out a long breath. The lamplight threw his bruises into greater relief.

"It's funny, Spartacus," he said thoughtfully, his voice quiet, tentative. "There are a lot of people who like me…think I'm something special…without having ever met me, and for no reason at all. I think Ron was a little like that, at first."

His lips quirked into a humorless smile.

"There's also plenty of people who can't stand me without every having met me and for no reason at all! Snape was like that, I think."

In the owl cage, Snape shifted restlessly.

"For the longest time that first year, I didn't even know why he hated me so much," Potter mused. "No one would ever tell me, except Dumbledore at the end of the year when I was in the hospital wing. And that wasn't the whole truth."

The boy sighed. "Dumbledore's good about telling the truth, but not all the truth. That…worries me sometimes."

It worried Snape, too.

"Anyway," Potter continued after another long pause, "I _did_ get to know more about why Snape didn't like me…but it was still never just for _me_, you know? He hates me for whose son I am, and how he thinks I am." Potter pondered a moment. "It made me feel…not too great about him, either, know what I mean?"

Snape thought he might.

Turning onto his side again, Potter clutched his pillow against his chest and looked at the wall.

"Last year," he began, and Snape thought he might not even be aware that he was speaking aloud, "I went into Dumbledore's Pensieve while it had Snape's memories in it. I thought…I thought he was up to something, something bad. He used to be a Death Eater, you know. I couldn't get how Dumbledore could trust him! He wouldn't tell me why…he never told me anything, last year. Until the night of the fight at the ministry, that is. The night…Sirius died."

Potter raked his fingers through his untidy black hair.

"I thought it was because he was angry with me," he said in a low voice. "Dumbledore, I mean. For…you know, getting him kicked out of the Wizengamot and all that...and all that stuff in the _Prophet_. He wouldn't look at me or talk to me or anything." The boy closed his eyes, looking pained.

Snape sighed to himself. It had been a foolish, childish thing to think – but then, Potter _was_ a child still. _Albus, for such a brilliant man you can be capable of some extreme lapses in judgment._

"Anyway," Potter continued, "I figured he was right about Snape and I was wrong all along, because Snape checked on Sirius after I told him what I'd seen in my vision, and he sent the Order after me at the ministry…and he hates both Sirius and me, so he was doing the right thing whether he wanted to or not. That's something, I guess."

_Well, thank you for that dubious recommendation, _Snape thought sourly.

This time, the silence lasted so long that Snape thought Potter had fallen asleep again. He was just getting lost in his own thoughts when the boy spoke once more – indeed, almost missed what he had said:

"That was the night I found out about the Prophecy."

A shiver when down Snape's spine at this and he pricked up his sharp ears. He had never heard the complete Prophecy, but it seemed that Potter had…from Dumbledore, no doubt.

The boy tensed visibly, then passed his hand impatiently in front of his eyes.

"I don't want to think about that now, though," he said tersely.

Abruptly he stood up and went to his wardrobe, retrieving a pair of pajamas. When he removed his t-shirt, Snape was dismayed to see blue finger marks on his left shoulder: he could picture Dursley roughly seizing the boy and steering him toward the stairs after hitting him earlier this evening.

_We have to get out of here_, Snape thought, and he never noticed that he was now thinking _we_ and not _I_.


	9. Chapter 8

Almost fifteen years ago, Severus Snape set himself a task to which he fully intended to devote the rest of his life to the best of his ability – protecting Harry Potter. It was, he felt, the last, best and only service left he could do now for Lily Evans, who had been – and remained – the love of his life.

That he loathed the boy for his paternity and resented him for the painful memories he evoked made no difference. Snape was a single-minded man who lived by his own moral code, come what may. This was why he had followed up on Potter's vision of the "capture" of Sirius Black. Snape had seen enough death in his lifetime not to wish to experience anymore on the side of the light, and he would never desert a fellow Order member whether he liked him or not.

With the exception of Albus Dumbledore, Snape cared not at all what others thought of him. He knew that certain of his colleagues, fellow Order members, students and much of the wizarding world in general viewed him with distrust, dislike and suspicion. This suited him well enough. He did not seek to ingratiate himself with anyone: no accolades he might earn could make up for what he had done to Lily. He felt no need of friends: life had taught him that love often ended in loss; nor did he want to be distracted in his work as a spy. He was proud of his Slytherins and did not bother to hide his preferential treatment of them, but this was not so much for their sakes' as it was because he needed to stay on the good side of their Death Eater relatives. Also, when he could support a Slytherin, especially against a Gryffindor, it eased a sore spot in him left over from his unhappy experiences with the Marauders.

Snape knew that Dumbledore had hoped that he, Snape, would come to care for Lily's child. The potions master was sure this could never happen. Despite his private vow to protect the boy at all costs, he still would have preferred him to be expelled so he would not be so constantly under Snape's eyes. Apart from detentions (during which the potions master delighted in tormenting Potter), Snape spent as little time in the brat's presence as he dared. And even the detentions left him with a deflated, frustrated feeling.

Snape had no desire to learn about the boy's life apart from what he observed in school, and he purposely observed as little as he could (excepting, of course, what he could use to get Potter into trouble). He allowed Potter to speak in his presence as little as possible; would brook none of his explanations or excuses for his conduct. When other adults spoke of the boy, Snape removed himself from the conversation as quickly as possible.

Thus, the current situation was, perhaps, the only way possible in which Snape could learn more about the _real_ Harry Potter, the one he refused to see…and even learn to feel differently about him.

The next three weeks had assumed a sort of routine: every morning at about 6:30 (an hour later at weekends), Petunia Dursley would rap on her nephew's door. The boy would scramble into the nearest clothes and disappear quickly down the stairs to prepare breakfast for his family. About an hour later he would return to see to the needs of his "pet." Each day, faithfully, he removed Snape from the cage and carefully tended his wounded shoulder. He would then clean the cage, refresh the food and water bowls, and cover the cage before seeing to his own morning ablutions.

Snape's wound was healing slowly; he thought Bellatrix might have built her twirling, fiery blade using fiendfyre. If she had, her control was admirable. At any rate, the cursed wound would have continued to eat into the muscle, perhaps damaging it permanently – maybe even killing him. A healer would have been able to help Snape make faster progress, but Potter was no slouch at healing, either…and the fact that he had magical potions to help him deal with the injury was the shoulder's salvation, for muggle remedies would not have had little effect.

Each day, Snape would perch on Potter's knee and force himself to hold still while the boy cleaned, treated and re-bandaged the painful area. Potter seemed to know how much Snape was hurting despite the gentle touch, and he attempted to soothe the bat using his voice by reading aloud from the _Daily Prophet_ while he worked. Thus it was that Snape learned how much public opinion had changed towards "the Chosen One;" he was amused to find that Potter seemed even more disgusted by this than Snape was himself.

If the boy tired of reading the _Prophet_, he would sometimes sing to his new pet instead. Though clearly not destined for a career in music, Potter sang fairly tunefully (admitting cheerfully that he would never have the courage to share this ability "where that lot in the Gryffindor common room could send me up"), and Snape had to admit that he found the boy's simple renditions rather…relaxing.

Once Snape was taken care of and the room tidied, Potter would ready himself for the day, then disappear until evening. Snape knew he was kept busy from morning 'til night with chores – the bat's keen sense of smell easily detected the sweat of physical labor on the boy when he returned, along with the scent of grass clippings, or furniture polish, or cleaning solution, or garden fertilizer, or silver polish, or paint and turpentine. Very often he smelled of cooking, as well.

Potter would clean himself up a bit, then remove the cover from the cage, greeting Snape with his usual, soft-spoken, "Hey, Spartacus." Then he would sit at his desk and spend an hour or two over his schoolwork. When he finished, he would push his books away, stretch, and move over to his bed.

Then he would talk to Snape – sometimes for as long as two hours – before going to sleep. If a nightmare woke him during the small hours of the morning (which happened two or three times a week), the boy would talk to the transformed potions master for another half an hour or longer.

The irony of the situation, of course, was that Potter would have infinitely preferred confiding in Argus Filch than he would in Snape. And Snape, for his part, would never have chosen to listen at length to _any_ student's teenaged angst and adolescent unburdenings, let alone Potter's – the mere thought of doing so would ordinarily cause his eyes to glaze over with sheer boredom in the space of five minutes. But the boy thought he was talking to a dumb animal, and the brooding potions master was a captive audience that could not speak – so he was _forced_ to listen, for once, and by listening, learned more about what went on inside Harry Potter's mind and heart than any living creature in the world – except, perhaps, for Potter's owl, which was still at Hogwarts with Hagrid.

All the worries, anxieties and fears that Potter could not bring himself to share even with his friends, he now related to Snape. Thus it was that Snape learned about the Prophecy in all its dreadful implications, about the activities of Dumbledore's Army, about Dolores Umbridge's blood quill which Potter had been too proud to complain about to McGonagall, about his love for Dumbledore and fear of letting the old man down. He learned about Potter's disappointment in the way his brief romance had turned out with Miss Chang, his growing attraction to Miss Weasley and worries over her brother's reactions to them should he learn of it, and his doubts as to whether he could ever hope for a normal life with normal relationships. He learned about the boy's ambitions to become an Auror, and his anxiety over the results of his O.W.L.s. He came to understand Potter's intense fear of loss, a fear born of losing those he loved to death or that they would turn away from him. He had even come to realize the boy's regret for sneaking into Snape's memories last term – and not only because of what he'd learned about his father, either, but because he'd violated an Order member's privacy out of suspicion.

As the situation had put the boy in the unusual position of confiding in Snape, of all people, so had it also put Snape in the unusual position of preparing his heart to listen – _really_ listen – to Potter. Unable to speak, to move at will, or to act, Snape had his own anxieties to cope with along with pain and boredom. His disappearance was being kept quiet, apparently, or Potter would no doubt have mentioned it – _probably with a clarion trumpet,_ Snape thought sourly. And the fact that he had not yet been found meant that Dumbledore had another, distracting worry to add to his list of burdens.

Then, there was the constant tension caused by dread that the Dark Lord would send for him and he would be unable to respond. He had been lucky thus far – Voldemort avoided sending for him too often for fear Dumbledore would become suspicious – but his luck couldn't hold out forever, Snape knew. And he was deeply concerned as to what McNair and Bellatrix Lestrange had been up to on the day she attacked him. He was well aware that Voldemort did not confide every plan to his followers, but this omission troubled him nonetheless.

As for the boredom…beyond reading the pages of the _Daily Prophet_ that Potter used to line the cage and listening avidly when the boy read to him from the paper or from his personal letters (particularly those from Order members), Snape had nothing to divert him in his solitude. He slept most of the day (as bats will), meditated a great deal of the time, reviewed potions in his head, recited passages of poetry from his days of reading and studying with Lily, and worried.

Increasingly, though, he found that his main source of diversion was becoming Potter himself – the spoiled, conceited brat who thought he was too good to follow the rules. Or so he had once thought.

Snape had always prided himself on his solitariness and comfort with his own company. But even that fool Pettigrew, posing as the Weasley boys' pet for over a decade, had had more society than Snape did now. The only voice he heard now (with any clarity, at least) was Potter's, and Snape began to look forward to the boy's return each evening with an eagerness and relief he would not have dared to admit even to himself.

Through Potter's musings on his friends, his enemies, his ideas and ambitions, Snape began to discern, reluctantly at first, eagerly as time went on, what Dumbledore had tried to make him aware of all along – that along with James Potter's recklessness, bull-headedness, lack of subtlety and penchant for rule-breaking, this boy possessed also Lily's compassion, loyalty, forgiving nature and overwhelming capacity to love in the face of ill-treatment.

Snape also suspected something that even Dumbledore wouldn't have guessed, perhaps…that the boy's tendency toward secretiveness and rule-breaking came, not from conceit or a superior attitude as he had thought, but from a deep-seeded mistrust of adults – who, indeed, had never given him much reason to trust.

As transparent as he seemed, Harry Potter would never have made it in Slytherin.

Weakness? Perhaps. When Snape heard Potter's thoughts on Draco, how he despised his school nemesis but sympathized with him at the same time, he knew the Malfoy boy would never be so generous to an enemy. But he also knew that Potter shared, without knowing it, Dumbledore's ability to make people love him – a power that, if he chose, he could use to direct their lives. And yet it was also clear that the boy had too much humility to do such a thing even if he did know about it. This made him vulnerable, might even be foolish overall – but also displayed an integrity far above even Dumbledore's.

No wonder the old wizard loved this boy so tenderly. Snape realized that he himself had learned as an abused boy to hold his cards close, to guard his heart jealously. Potter either could not or would not learn to do this. Instead of being evidence of weakness, as Snape had originally thought, was this the power that, in the end, would destroy Voldemort?

But of all the things Potter talked to "Spartacus" about, Snape noticed, he never spoke of the Durlseys beyond a few timely remarks: "I'd better hurry and cook the breakfast or I'll have Aunt Petunia up here;" "I need to finish trimming the hedges by the time he gets home or Uncle Vernon will come down on me;" "I'm glad Mrs. Weasley sent these meat pies – I didn't get enough at dinner tonight because Dudley took extra helpings."

Snape found these omissions particularly disturbing because the boy continued to appear with minor injuries: a bruise around his wrist one day, a cut lip the next. Once he showed up with a red handprint on his face. The mark did not darken into a bruise, but Snape thought that Petunia's long, slim fingers might have made it. On these days, Potter was not nearly so talkative in the evenings, though he usually would have a nightmare the same night. His conversation following these dreams was invariably morose.

His own lack of insight into this harsh treatment (along with the boy's apparent acceptance of it) made Snape wonder if Vernon and Petunia Dursley were as hard on their son as they were on their nephew…it was possible that Potter wasn't the only minor in this household whose home life needed to be examined more closely. It wasn't until he'd begun his third week in Potter's care that Snape got definitive proof of the disparity between Potter and his cousin, so far as the Dursley parents were concerned.

It was Sunday – Snape knew this both because Potter had been allowed to sleep a little longer than usual and from seeing the date on the _Daily Prophet_ Potter had pored over in between tending his pet's injuries and preparing for the day. Dursley, off from work, apparently was watching some muggle sporting event on the television (Snape thought he could make out the sounds of a game in progress when Potter opened the door to leave the room).

Potter had evidently done something to upset his uncle sometime in the afternoon, because Snape was suddenly jerked out of a sound sleep by the muggle man's voice, raised in furious accents.

So startled he nearly lost his grip on the wire mesh from which he hung suspended, Snape pulled himself up by his good foreleg and listened intently. Through the canvas cover, a shut door, and an entire floor he caught the words Dursley had used the night he'd bloodied his nephew's nose: _abnormal. Freak._

Snape wondered uneasily what Potter had done to set the man off. He waited apprehensively for the sound of a crash, like last time – but this time he heard only the boy's feet pounding up the stairs again.

He dropped to the floor of the cage as the boy burst into the room. Potter came directly to the cage, pushed the cover aside and opened the cage door.

Snape was too astounded to pull back or protest when Potter seized him, carried him quickly across the room, and dumped him unceremoniously in a long-abandoned hamster cage that sat empty on a shelf of broken toys, models and electronics next to the wardrobe.

Snape stared up at Potter in astonishment as the boy closed the door to the cage. It was much smaller than the owl cage, giving his fruit bat's body barely enough room to turn around.

"I'm sorry, Spartacus," the boy said grimly. He was quite pale, and the look on his face spoke of fear, anger and grim resignation all at once. He lifted the cage by the handle on top. "My uncle is coming up here to…to talk to me. I don't want you here for it, and I don't want to risk him seeing you. I'm not sure how he'd react, or how you'd react, and I don't want to chance it."

Before Snape had an opportunity to react, Potter moved on quick, noiseless feet out of the room and into the hallway. Snape had a brief, dizzily moving impression of a wide, carpeted hall with closed doors on either side, dimly lit by a skylight at the far end. Potter moved swiftly to the far end of the hall, silently opened a door and crossed a bright room full of sunshine in which Snape squinted painfully.

Potter set the cage down.

"You'll be safe here, Spartacus," the boy whispered. "This is my cousin's room, and he's spending the day with his gang. I'll come back for you later."

He crossed the room and slipped through the door, shutting it behind him and leaving silence in his wake.

For a moment, Snape just sat perfectly still in the silence of the room, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. He had been jerked out of a sound sleep and hustled from the room where he had spent the last two weeks and more. He felt completely bewildered.

A few moments of deep breathing and calming techniques, and Snape's brain cleared enough to let him take stock of his new surroundings.

He was in a large, airy room, at least twice the size of Potter's. The walls were painted a deep but cheerful blue. They looked fresh-painted, and Snape suddenly wondered if Potter himself had painted them…he had detected a smell of turpentine and paint on the boy's hands earlier in the month, and seen flecks of that same color paint on his faded, baggy blue jeans.

A full-sized bed with a thick mattress dominated one wall, covered with a fluffy, blue-and-grey striped comforter. Curtains of the same material fluttered at the three large windows, two of which looked out onto the backyard, the other to the side of the house. A thick, grey-flecked carpet covered most of the hardwood floor. In the corner between the windows was a large, leather-upholstered easy chair.

On a heavy, tall walnut dresser across from the head of the bed was a huge television, complete with media player and game console. Shelves immediately to the left of the dresser were crammed with movie and game disks.

To the right of the desk, between the two sets of windows, was the large, walnut desk on which Potter had placed his cage. A padded, office-style chair with an expensive-looking leather jacket hung on the back stood in front of it. On the wall to the left and below the third window was a second dresser; this one longer than it was tall. A mirror was affixed to it. To the right of the dresser, a series of five shelves reached up to the ceiling. The shelves, two bedside tables, desk and dressers were overflowing with things: a large stereo, music CDs, handheld electronic games, a portable CD player, watches, framed pictures, magazines and other trinkets spilled everywhere. Piled around Snape's small cage on the desk were text books and other books, none of which looked touched. A good desk lamp, tall floor lamp, and lamps on each of the nightstands ensured the room would be as well-lit as its owner liked come nightfall.

On the far wall to the right of the bed, a door leading into a large, walk-in closet stood ajar. It appeared to be crammed with clothes. One look at the sizes of them told Snape immediately whose cast-offs Potter was forced to wear.

Almost every available inch of wall space was covered with muggle posters, pictures and school pennants that spelled out "Smeltings."

Letting his breath out slowly, Snape lowered himself to the floor of the cage. Well, he had his answer about whether or not the two boys were treated the same.

* * *

Potter's voice, pitched low and soft, woke him just after sunset.

"Hey, Spartacus."

Slowly, Snape rose to his feet. The room was shrouded in a half-light. He was surprised he'd managed to doze off – he felt very uncomfortable in this luxurious, opulent room, as though something might come in at any moment and snatch him up.

But it was only Potter, looking ghostly pale in the twilight.

"I'm sorry I didn't come for you sooner, Spartacus," the boy murmured. "C'mon…let's get back to my room." He lifted the cage and moved carefully and quietly out of the room and up the hallway to his own bedroom at the top of the stairs.

Snape, fastidious as he naturally was in his adulthood, felt a strange sense of profound relief to be back in the cramped, shabby little room.

Potter set the hamster cage on his small, rickety desk, then reached in to lift Snape out. The boy smiled a little when the bat came to him instead waiting to be picked up.

"Yeah, I'm glad this afternoon's over, too," he told the bat. His voice sounded slightly hoarse, the potions master noticed.

Back in the larger cage, Snape turned to take a good look at Potter.

Except for two high, flushed spots on each cheek, the boy's face was chalky white. There were dark circles under his red-rimmed, watery eyes, but no tear-tracks on his cheeks. His lower lip looked raw, as though he had been worrying it between his teeth.

With a long sigh, Potter sank down on the chair at his desk and leaned back. He stiffened suddenly, sucking his breath between his teeth and quickly sitting forward with a wince. Shifting position so that he was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he dropped his face in his hands.

After perhaps five minutes, the boy rose again. He smiled crookedly at the bat.

"You have some food and water, Spartacus, and do whatever it is you do when I'm asleep," Potter said gently. "I've had enough for one day myself.'

As he moved toward the bed, the oversized t-shirt he wore slid down slightly over one shoulder, and Snape saw a wide, dark red welt marring the pale skin.


	10. Chapter 9

_Harry sat in the backyard, taking a much-needed break from cutting the grass. It was a dull, cool, cloudy day, and the drying sweat on his body had chilled him through. Suddenly, the sun burst through the clouds and felt so wonderfully warm that he stripped off his shirt to expose his clammy skin more fully to its soothing rays. At first it felt brilliant…he warmed up quickly. Too quickly…suddenly his back was on fire, as though red-hot iron was being pressed against his flesh. He looked down and, to his astonishment, saw snow on the ground at his feet. He thought how good the snow would feel against his burnt skin and immediately lowered himself to the snowy grass and rolled over onto it – _

– only to awaken with a yelp as the scratchy sheets on his bed made contact with his abused flesh.

Fully awake at once, Harry sat up quickly. He had fallen asleep in his clothes on top of the covers. Glancing at the repaired clock on the shelf, he saw that it was 2:24 in the morning. He spared one longing glance at the water glass on his bedside table, but it was empty – he had drained it hours ago. He did not want to risk waking his uncle in going to get more, and so opted to be thirsty, instead.

Sighing, Harry stood up. His back was on fire, and the skin felt too tight, as though it had shrunk on his body as he slept. Moving slowly so as not to aggravate his stiff muscles and tortured flesh, he went over to his wardrobe, carefully removed his jeans, and pulled on a pair of faded blue pajama bottoms. Then, very, very gingerly indeed, he peeled off his t-shirt. He did not reach for the pajama jacket, for even the thought of that light layer of threadbare cotton weighing on his back was intolerable.

There was a slightly warped mirror on the inside of one of the wardrobe's doors, but Harry did not bother to twist around to inspect the damage Uncle Vernon had inflicted. He could see part of a wide red stripe extending over his left shoulder and over his collarbone, while several more welts curled around his torso over his ribs. He knew from experience that, from the nape of his neck to his waist, these marks crisscrossed his back, leaving bruises in a few places, but mostly dark red welts that would cast shadows in the dim light of his bedside lamp, so swollen were they. He had seen it before. He had no wish to view it again.

Behind him, he heard an almost frantic scrabbling.

Harry turned. Spartacus seemed very agitated, climbing around on the wire mesh Harry had fixed to Hedwig's cage.

"What's with you?" Harry asked the bat curiously.

He approached the cage. To his surprise, the bat dropped to the newspaper lining and looked up at him with a strangely questioning look –

_What can I do for you? Is there anything at all? _it seemed to say.

Harry watched the creature for a long moment, considering. Then, without realizing he was going to do it, he suddenly opened the door to the cage, reached in, and lifted Spartacus out. He carried the bat over to the bed and set him down near the pillow. Then he gingerly lay down on his side, facing it.

For one moment, the bat seemed frozen with shock, and Harry was sure it was going to leap away. Then some instinct seemed to tell it to relax, and it settled down on the sheets and returned Harry's look without blinking.

After a few moments, Harry spoke.

"I think sometimes," he began slowly, "about what people would think of me if they knew about…this." He waved an encompassing hand toward the room, the house as a whole. "What my life here is really like, I mean. I could never tell them."

He was quiet a moment.

"I think Hermione suspects sometimes," he went on finally. "She saw my potions kit going home year before last and asked some questions…looked pretty suspicious, too."

Harry smiled, but there was pain in both his heart and the smile. "Ron's pretty clueless. Doesn't suspect a thing."

He turned his eyes back to the wall again, and was silent for a long time, almost seeming to forget about the bat. When he spoke again, it was more to himself than to Spartacus, and his quiet voice dropped a notch.

"I wonder if Dumbledore suspects. He knows it's hard for me here. He said so, end of last year."

Another long pause.

"I'm sure he doesn't know my uncle hits me, though," Harry went on. He swallowed hard. "Except…he knows so much."

Another pause, the longest yet. Then,

"Maybe…maybe he thinks I need it." His voice was a whisper now, and he looked at the wall, feeling he couldn't even face the bat while he made this admission. He swallowed again. "Or maybe…maybe he thinks I…I deserve it. Sometimes…sometimes _I _think I deserve it."

Long habit enabled Harry to force the pain of these thoughts down and cap a mental lid over them. He turned his thoughts to his guardian instead.

"He…my uncle, I mean…gets angry because I don't yell or cry," he told Spartacus hollowly. His eyes hardened, and so did his voice. "I wouldn't give him the satisfaction."

He sighed then, and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "But I couldn't even if I wanted to, Spartacus. It's funny, really…when I was small, I got punished for crying…'whinging and whining,' they called it. Said they'd give me something to cry about. Now he gets mad when I _don't_ cry."

Taking his hands away from this face, Harry looked into the bat's eyes.

"I don't cry at all anymore, Spartacus. Not since I was really little. I stopped long before I came to Hogwarts. I can't cry." The green eyes closed for a moment, then opened again. "I came close…twice, I think. The first time was when Dumbledore told me how my mum died to save me. Then, when Cedric died…well, Mrs. Weasley was holding me, and…no one ever held me like that before." His voice had dropped to a whisper.

"Anyway," Harry continued, "I thought I might cry then. I felt like it, anyway. But something…Hermione, I guess…distracted me. I was sort of glad. Ron was watching, and…well, I didn't want to cry in front of him. Or that Skeeter woman, who was pretending to be a beetle so she could eavesdrop. Wish Hermione had squashed her, the sneak…at least she stopped her from putting it in the _Prophet_!"

Harry sighed, fell silent again, then said, "I never even cried for Sirius."

Without thinking about it, he did something he often did with Hedwig: he reached out and began to gently scratch the back of the bat's head and stroke it along its back. It stiffened at first, and for one moment Harry thought he might have gone too far with this wild creature – that it would bite him again, or try to escape, or at least move away. Then it seemed to make up its mind to endure the touch, for it slowly relaxed. Harry was glad. Giving comfort to the beast gave him comfort, made him feel more…more _proactive_, somehow, in this horrible, out-of-control situation. Surely he couldn't be as helpless as he felt if he could give some small, positive attention to another living creature, even if it was only an owl…or, in this case, a wounded bat?

For a long time, Harry gently stroked Spartacus.

"I wish I could," he whispered finally. "Cry, I mean. I have a knot…here." He touched his stomach.

The bat was silent.

After a few more minutes, Harry sighed, got up, and carried the bat back to the cage.

"Anyway," he said, as he went back to his bed and eased himself, facedown, onto the mattress, "I only have one more summer after this one, then I'll be of age and can leave Privet Drive for good. If I live that long."

* * *

When Snape had seen the damage the bastard of a muggle had inflicted on his own nephew, he could not keep from growing agitated. There was barely an inch of unmarked skin on the boy's back – some of the lashes had even landed on his upper arms. In a few places, the belt had drawn blood.

Snape had wanted to do…_something_…but he was caged, mute and helpless. Even if he had not been, he was unsure of what he could have done, beyond destroying that muggle and healing the boy. He had been astonished when the boy had removed him from the cage and deposited him onto the bed, and had briefly considered transforming then and there. His lifelong habit of caution, of not allowing emotion to dictate his actions, had kicked in, however…instinct told him to remain still, and that was what he did.

When Potter had begun to stroke him, Snape had almost scrambled away. He did not like to be touched. His mother had been the only one to touch him with love as a small boy, and he was unaccustomed to kind touches from anyone else. Even Lily's hugs, as much as he cherished them and had looked forward to them as a schoolboy, had left him feeling uncertain and confused. And as much as he loved Dumbledore, he could not keep himself from stiffening a bit when the old wizard occasionally put a hand on his arm or shoulder. It was for this reason, he knew, that the discerning old wizard rarely did such things.

In the end, though, he forced himself to hold still, seeing that the boy seemed soothed by the repetitive motion. And Snape had to admit that it had not been exactly…abhorrent as he had thought it would be.

His heart had been wrenched more than he liked to admit by Potter's admission of never having been held or comforted. Snape's own mother, after all, had held him when he was small. She had died during his second year at Hogwarts, but he _had_ known comforting arms around him at one point, and it seemed that Potter never had. Snape knew he could never comfort the boy as his own mother had comforted him after one of his father's punishments, so perhaps allowing the boy derive comfort from stroking a bat was best he could manage.

After Potter had dropped off to sleep, Snape had carefully stretched his shoulder and wing. They were healing, slowly, but well. If he transformed now, he could function well enough to get the two of them back to Hogwarts. He would prefer to wait if he could for Potter to declare him well enough to release him; then he could transform away from the house and return to fetch the boy without Potter finding out about Snape's animagis abilities.

It was no longer mistrust that made Snape want to hid his dual identity from Potter, though certainly Potter's knowledge of the fact would put him at risk of discovery by Voldemort should the dark wizard again attempt to enter the boy's mind. Now, Snape felt…almost guilty of his newfound knowledge of the boy's life. He shrank from the thought of Potter finding out that his new pet, the one to which he confided his most secret thoughts, had been his hated potions master. He imagined, with pain, how great the boy's unease would be that Snape would never hold them sacred.

The potions master knew he might not have a choice, though. If that muggle went to hurt the boy again, Snape would surely have to take his very next opportunity of freedom to transform.

* * *

The next morning was a Monday. Despite the thrashing Potter had received the day before, he got up quickly as usual to provide breakfast for his aunt and uncle. Afterwards he brought Snape a dish of kiwi, so the potions master assumed he had not been deprived of food again.

The boy had no sooner covered the owl cage when Petunia entered the room without knocking. Snape saw her through the gap in the cover as she handed a list to Potter.

"I have to do some shopping," she told the boy. "I need you to go to the market and pick up some things. We're having Duddy's birthday dinner tonight, and I want everything to be perfect."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," the boy said tonelessly, taking the list.

"I want you to trim the hedges alongside the house today, too," Petunia went on. "Duddy's friend Piers is coming over to spend the afternoon and will stay for dinner. You do your chores and stay out of their way, do you hear me?"

Snape heard the boy snort and smiled grimly to himself. _Yes, I'm sure Potter is very disappointed not to be part of that little confab, _he thought, smirking.

Petunia apparently decided to ignore this, and with a parting warning to the boy to have his chores completed by the time she got home at around five, she left. A few moments later, Potter left as well, and Snape, suspending himself from the mesh canopy at the top of the cage, prepared to sleep the day away, as bats will.

* * *

It was around one o'clock in the afternoon when he was again jerked out of a sound sleep by loud noises, this time in the hallway.

Curling into a somewhat upright position, he thought nervously, _Merlin, what now?!_

He heard a boy's voice – not the Durlsey boy's voice or Potter's:

"C'mon, Big D, finish your lunch already, are we playing video games or what?!"

It was close, right outside Potter's door. From downstairs, the voice of Potter's cousin drifted up:

"Hang on, Piers, would ya? Just let me finish my cake!"

The other boy – Piers – groaned outside the door. "Fat lump," he muttered under his breath. Snape heard him lean against the door. Apparently, Potter had not latched it tightly, for it swung open suddenly and the boy stumbled in.

Snape froze where he was, not wanting to attract attention by the slightest sound or movement.

"Whoa…Dudley. Hey, Big D!" the boy yelled.

A moment later, Snape heard the Durlsey boy coming up the stairs. He halted in the hallway outside Potter's room, apparently reluctant to enter.

"Piers, that's my cousin's room…come out of there!"

"Your freak cousin sleeps in _here_?" the second boy snorted. "What a dive!"

"C'mon, Piers, get out of there!" Dudley Dursley definitely sounded nervous.

"What's with you, Big D, you act like you're scared of that skinny little shrimp!" Piers demanded. "Have you forgotten our 'Harry Hunting' days or what?"

Now Dudley sounded sullen.

"I'm not scared of that freak, I just want to get to our games. C'mon!"

But Piers did not leave, and Snape stiffened as he heard footsteps approach the cage.

"Dud…what's this? Does Harry have a parrot or something?"

Dudley sounded more reluctant than ever.

"No…it's an owl. C'mon, Piers, I wanna play some _Megadeath IV_."

"No, wait…this is so cool; I wanna get a look at this!" The boy sounded excited. "An _owl_, really? Where'd he get it?"

Now Dudley was in the room, too.

"No, leave it alone; I don't know. At that freak school of his, OK? It's probably not even there; he uses it to send messages to his freaky friends and stuff."

"Like a carrier pigeon? Why would that St. Brutus's or whatever let him keep an _owl_?"

And then, with a sudden yank that set the cage swinging, Piers tore off the canvas cover.

Snape, horrified, started in shock as the two boys, one fat and nervous-looking, the other skinny, pimply, and fascinated, stared back at him, their mouths agape.

The skinny one chortled suddenly.

"Hey Dud…hate to tell you, mate, but that's not an owl. That's a _bat_!"


	11. Chapter 10

_Essence of murtlap,_ Harry thought. _Got to make more essence of murtlap to bring home next summer. I wonder how long before I can get out of here?_

The bags in his arms were heavy, filled to bursting with last-minute items for Dudley's birthday dinner that Aunt Petunia had forgotten.

_Everything must be perfect for Duddy's birthday_, Harry thought sardonically.

In truth, though, he didn't mind being sent on errands. Such tasks provided him opportunity to get away from the Dursleys for a bit, to see other people, and to get a break from the endless chores around a house that did not welcome him.

Getting out today was extra enjoyable for two reasons: first, it provided less time in which Harry would have to contend with Dudley and Piers; second, the walk to the store and back gave him a chance to clear his head after the altercation with Uncle Vernon yesterday – something that was harder to do when he was stuck at the house, doing chores.

He was relieved his uncle had not marked him anywhere that couldn't be covered with clothing. If he'd hit him in the face or on the lower arms, for instance, Harry would not have been allowed out of the house until the blemishes faded. As it was, the early afternoon sun was unpleasantly warm on back, making the skin prickle and reminding him of his dream last night, but the t-shirt did an adequate job of concealing the damage.

All too soon, Number 4 appeared in view. Harry sighed, but did not slow his pace – he still had a lot to do before precious Diddykin's birthday dinner, and it wouldn't pay to upset his aunt and uncle again. Besides, he shouldn't have any trouble going on with his work – now that they were older and Dudley knew what he had for a cousin, "Harry Hunting" had become pretty much a thing of the past.

And anyway, the two idiots would no doubt be holed up in Dudley's room, spending this lovely day indoors, playing violent video games. Which was fine with Harry, seeing as how that meant they would _not_ be watching Harry work, eating ice cream and ruminating on what a shame it was to get overheated on such a warm summer's day.

As Harry crossed the parameters of the blood wards, a man strolling past on the opposite side of the street studied him a moment, then vanished into thin air after Harry disappeared from view.

* * *

Clinging to the inverted mesh Potter had affixed to the top of the cage with the claws of three of his paws, Snape, frozen with shock, stared upside-down at the two astonished teen-aged boys standing in front of him. Their identical expressions of bemusement did nothing to improve their gormless features.

Dudley recovered first, glaring at his friend.

"I _know_ it's a bat, Piers! I'm not an idiot you know!"

"I thought you said Harry had an owl?" Piers demanded, never taking his eyes off Snape.

"He does. I don't know where it is, probably off sending messages or something. I don't know where this thing came from."

Piers walked slowly around the cage. "Look – it's got a bandage on it."

Dudley looked, then snorted. "That explains it – it was probably hurt or something, and that freaky cousin of mine found it and decided to try to play doctor. He was always doing that when we were younger." The fat boy chuckled. "Half the time I put his little pets out of their misery while his back was turned; he never figured out why they didn't get better!"

Piers, meanwhile, kept walking around the cage, back and forth, inspecting the bat from all sides. Snape kept twisting his body around to keep him in view.

"This is _so_ cool," Piers breathed, his eyes eager. "Will you just look at the size of it! I'd swear there aren't any bats this size native to the UK."

Dudley was uneasy. "Do you…do you think it's a vampire bat, or something?"

Trust his witchy cousin to have a dangerous animal like that. Dad would _kill_ him.

"Nah, I don't think so," Piers said, moving quite close to the cage and taking hold of the bars above the door, poking his fingers – just slightly – past the mesh. "Look at its teeth – they don't look big enough for that."

Dudley eyed the clearly uneasy bat, which had dropped to the floor of the cage and backed away, baring its teeth as Piers threatened to invade its space. "I don't know…they look big enough to me."

_Ask Potter, he'll tell you about my teeth!_ Snape thought irritably. He backed up as far as he could, until this back came in contact with the bars at the back of the cage and prevented him from going any further.

"Look, Big D – it's got a dish of fruit there. It's a fruit bat!" Piers pointed to the food bowl on the bottom of the cage. Dudley looked closer.

"Hey, that's my breakfast kiwi! My mum got that for me for my diet!" Dudley glared at the bat. "That freak wasn't even supposed to have any food today 'cause he's being punished!"

"Dudley, we've just got to show this to the guys! C'mon, let's take him out of there!"

Snape's heartbeat kicked up another notch.

_Not good…not good at all._

What would he do if these boys tried to handle him? They both looked far rougher, much more ham-handed and much less gentle and considerate than Potter. If he was forced to transform to save himself, the boys would have to be obliviated, both for their own sakes and for his. Yet this house was under the scrutiny of the ministry for any magic performed onsite – even now, with popular opinion for Potter running high, the minister would use any excuse to pounce on the boy. The chances of Snape's cover being irrevocably blown, to the point of it getting back to the Dark Lord, would be very high indeed.

The tightrope-walk that had been his adult life had compelled Snape to become an expert at thinking on his feet, making drastic decisions on the spur of the moment in life-and-death situations without faltering, time and time again – but now, to his disgust and consternation, the question of how to deal with two bullying, teenaged muggle boys had him at a loss. Whether it was the unfathomably bizarre situation or the fact that they were teenaged bullies, with all the bad memories such beings forced him to relive, that had him freezing, didn't make much difference.

Snape tried to make himself appear as large as he possibly could, bristled the fur around his neck, bared his teeth, hissed menacingly and glared daggers at the two boys.

Dudley Durlsey, at least, seemed somewhat cowed.

"C'mon, Piers…it doesn't look too friendly."

"Don't be a prat, Dud…it must be tame if your cousin was able to get a bandage on it." Piers opened the cage door and reached towards Snape.

Snape snapped at the approaching fingers and dodged to the right, but the muggle boy was too quick, avoiding the flashing teeth and seizing Snape by the scruff of his neck. His graceless fingers dug thoughtlessly into the wounded shoulder, and he dragged Snape roughly through the door of the cage and immediately flattened the potions master-turned-bat against his chest.

Snape squirmed to get free.

"There there, little batty bat," the boy crooned in a sing-song voice, snorting with laughter. He thumped Snape's skull with his fingers, making him see stars.

"Too cool!" Piers exclaimed. "C'mon, Dud…let's show it to the guys. We should keep him, seriously…use him to freak people out!"

Dudley, emboldened by Piers's success in subduing the creature, now wanted to prove he wasn't scared, either.

"Here, let me take him!" he said eagerly.

In retrospect, Snape thought perhaps he could have timed the whole thing better. The great lump of a boy was far faster than he'd expected – no doubt from his boxer's training at school.

As Piers passed Snape over, Snape sank his sharp little teeth into the Dursley boy's meaty forefinger – his hope was that the boy would drop him, giving him time to scurry under the bed and into a position of defense. The fat boy howled with pain, but instead of dropping Snape, he grabbed him roughly by the scruff of the neck with one hand, tight enough to pull on Snape's skin and put pressure on his windpipe. Then the hand with the wounded finger came up to grab Snape around the middle, tightening around the ribcage and squeezing the breath out of him.

Piers was laughing, but Dudley was furious.

"Filthy little thing probably gave me rabies!" he snarled.

The hand around the bat's furry middle tightened, and Snape's head began to swim.

As his vision began to grey, his last thought was an ironic one.

Instead of dying at the hand of Voldemort, which he more than half suspected was how he'd finish his life, he was going to be crushed by a spoiled, obese, petulant muggle boy.

He had a sudden, mad vision of Potter burying him in the garden in a shoebox, perhaps having a little funeral service over him, and felt a wild desire to laugh.

Probably no one would ever realize what had become of Severus Snape.

The boy's fingers clamped down. His ribs creaked and he squealed in pain, front claws raking at empty air.

* * *

Harry entered the kitchen through the back door, set the grocery bags down on the kitchen table, and began putting the food away. _Okay, put away the food, see if Dudley and Piers want lunch, then get started on the hedge–_

He heard a shrill, animal-squeal from upstairs, then Piers' voice:

"Dudley, c'mon, don't kill him!"

_Spartacus!_

Harry dropped the package of chops he was holding and bolted up the stairs.

He skidded to a halt as he flew into his room, staring with horror at the bat in his cousin's meaty hands. Its eyes were bulging and there was froth on its snout.

"Dudley, _don't_! Dudley, put him _down_!"

Dudley turned to glare at him.

"It _bit_ me!" he ground out. "You're keeping dangerous animals up here now? Wait 'til I tell Dad!"

His hand clamped down harder and Spartacus squealed again.

Going on pure instinct, Harry did something he hadn't done in years: he launched himself at the larger boy, aiming low to upset his center of gravity.

Harry's head rammed into Dudley's vast stomach. The larger boy's breath left him in a _whoosh_ and he stumbled backwards, dropping the bat to the floor. Harry had just enough time to seize Spartacus and sweep his inert form under the bed and out of harm's way. Then Dudley and Piers were both on him.

His glasses went flying to join Spartacus under the bed as Dudley punched him in the eye, then followed it up with a right cross to the mouth. Harry kicked Dudley hard in both shins, punched him in the stomach and, as he leaned over, winded, on the nose. Piers kicked Harry's legs out from under him, Dudley landed hard on top of him, and there was a brief, blinding flare of agony as two of his ribs cracked.

The three boys fell away from each other then, and Harry sat up, breathing hard. He could already feel his eye puffing up, and his mouth was bleeding. But when he looked at Dudley, his heart almost stopped. His cousin's nose was also bleeding, and already beginning to swell.

"Piers, go down and get me some ice, would you?" Dudey said coldly, glaring at Harry. "I'll be right down."

Piers recognized trouble when he saw it, and was not keen to bring any down on his own head. There was no way the evidence here could be kept from the adults in the house, and he decided it would be best to get out of it before the Dursley parents got home.

"Sure, Dud," he said. Then he went downstairs, out the door, and walked home.

Meanwhile, Dudley continued to glare at Harry.

"Dad'll whip the skin off you," he told the smaller boy flatly.

Harry knew it all too well. The worst beating he'd ever gotten in his life – and, incidentally, the last time his uncle had been able to make him cry – was when, at age seven, he had dared to raise a hand against Dudley. Never mind the fact that never a day had gone by since he'd first arrived on the Dursleys' doorstep that Dudley hadn't hurt him physically in some way, be it a pinch, poke, squeeze, slap, punch or kick – or any and all of the above. One day, when Dudley had had Harry down on this back and was straddling him, pummeling him enthusiastically, Harry had swung wildly and caught Dudley in the face, giving him a fine black eye. Uncle Vernon had thrashed Harry mercilessly; he had been almost unconscious before Aunt Petunia had intervened – the one and only time she had ever done so.

Having just gotten a dose of the belt the day before, Harry felt his stomach turn cold. It was rare that he got another beating before he'd healed up from a previous one, but he had no doubt this would be one of those times.

Dudley spoke again.

"_And_ he'll wring that _thing's_ neck."

_Spartacus_!

"Don't tell him, then." Harry rapped the words out strongly before he knew he was speaking them. There was jut a slight quaver in his voice.

Dudley was incredulous. "Are you kidding me? I can't wait to tell him! I hope he lets me watch him half-kill you, you little freak!"

"I mean about the bat," Harry said quickly. "I know he has to know about…about the bloody nose. Tell him you were in my room and that's why I jumped on you. But don't tell him about the bat. You may have already killed him," Harry had to swallow hard at this thought and forced himself not to look under the bed, "but if you didn't I'll let him go."

Dudley seemed to consider it.

"What will you give me if I don't tell Dad?" he asked finally.

Harry was surprised despite himself. What could he possibly have that Dudley would want?

"What do you want?"

"That cloak of yours," Dudley said. "The one that makes you invisible."

Harry's blood froze.

"How did you know about that?" he whispered.

Dudley smirked. "Never mind that. How about it? Give me that cloak and I won't tell Dad about your little pet."

Harry's heart pounded. His father had left him that cloak. It had helped him in numerous ways, even saved his life. Dumbledore had told him to keep it near at all times now that Voldemort was back.

Then he thought of Spartacus, Spartacus who had never hurt anybody, but had been hurt himself. Spartacus who'd been his companion during these long, lonely weeks without Hedwig.

Harry couldn't stand the idea of losing someone else, not when he could do something to stop it. Not even if that someone was just a bat.

"Deal. But you can't have it until after I've let the bat go."

"OK." Dudley grinned. He got up, then, and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Harry waited until he heard his cousin's footsteps retreating, then scrambled to the bed. He pulled the battery-less torch Remus had given him for Christmas last year from under the mattress and pointed the beam under the bed.

_Please, please don't be dead!_

Perhaps it was his recent loss of Sirius, but Harry felt panic brushing against his mind like a caged bird frantic to get free. His heart thundered in his chest, and he couldn't have been more frightened had it been Hedwig that Dudley and his cruel friend had brutalized.

_C'mon, where are you?!_

His sweeping fingers made contact with fur, and, his heart in his mouth, he swiftly but carefully pulled the inert bat out from under the bed.

For a moment, Harry cradled the motionless creature to his chest in his shaking hands, certain it was dead. Then he felt the fluttering heartbeat through its breast.

Alive then, but the bat's eyes were mere slits, the pupils rolled back into the skull. It was panting rapidly, tongue between its teeth.

Harry had no idea what to do for it. External wounds were one thing, but if Dudley had squashed any of its internal organs or splintered its ribs (his own side flared painfully at the thought), Harry did not know what he could do. If he were at Hogwarts, he would take Spartacus directly to Hagrid, but Hogwarts was a world away and without Hedwig, Harry had no way of contacting the grounds keeper for advice.

Briefly, he thought of grabbing his stuff and making a run for it with Spartacus, taking the Knight Bus to Grimmauld Place. He abandoned this plan almost as soon as he considered it – a similar endeavor had not worked out well when he'd attempted it before third year, and now, with Voldemort back and Death Eaters on the loose, the stakes were much higher. Uncle Vernon would thrash him, but that was nothing to what Voldemort and his minions would do, and infinitely preferable to getting other people involved and risking their safety.

All right. No Hagrid to fall back on and nowhere to go. He was on his own.

Harry set Spartacus gently on the bed, then pried up the loose floorboard in search of his potion stores. He had a pretty potent painkiller, an anti-inflammatory and a bruise salve. He would do for Spartacus what he could and hope for the best. He would also make him a new bed to lie in, since he wasn't sure the bat would be able to hang on to the wire mesh to sleep.

Harry moved carefully but quickly, wanting to finish with Spartacus before anyone returned to Number 4. He did not even bother planning to finish the list of chores Aunt Petunia had given him. This was more important, and there was no point, anyway. Chores finished or not, Uncle Vernon would have his head when he got home.

Harry just wanted to make sure Spartacus was out of the way, first.

* * *

Snape came to slowly, a fearful headache pounding at his temples. He tried to stretch and felt pain knife through his midsection, cutting his breath short. He forced his eyes open, then had to wait until his vision cleared.

When he saw that he was lying on the bottom of the cage in a cotton wool-lined box, Snape almost thought it was still his first day with Potter and that he had dreamed everything that came after. Then he remembered the two muggle boys.

He took a quick self-assessment of his injuries. The wounded shoulder had been sadly wrenched, and his ribcage throbbed painfully. He did not appear to have any broken bones, however, but he did have a significant number of bruises. No doubt he had lost consciousness from his air supply being cut off when the huge boy had squeezed him – that would also explain the headache.

_Potter!_

He vaguely remembered Potter confronting the two boys, the scuffle, and…did Potter really offer his invisibility cloak in exchange for keeping him, Snape, safe?

_Not me. Spartacus._ The thought made him feel strangely sad and wistful.

"How are you doing, Spartacus?"

Snape looked up. Potter was leaning toward him, his pale, thin face worried. He had a split lip and a puffy black eye.

_What time is it? How long have I been out?_ Snape tried to sit up to get a better view of the clock on the shelf, but his legs had turned into water.

"Spartacus."

Snape looked back at Potter. The boy was very pale indeed.

"Listen, Spartacus," Potter said urgently. "I can't take you out of here like I did before…Dudley's home, and there's no time." He swallowed hard.

"I…I need you to be quiet and still Spartacus, OK?" Even with his exceptional hearing, Snape almost had to strain to hear the boy, so soft was his whisper. "Don't get upset like Hedwig…there's nothing to get upset about. Everything's going to be OK."

Far from reassuring Snape, the potions master was becoming more and more alarmed – because he sensed that Potter, while genuinely trying to soothe the bat in his care, was trying to reassure himself, as well.

Snape tensed as he heard a door slam, then a voice bellow from below stairs:

"_Boy_! Get down here _NOW_!"

Potter tensed and looked up, a hunted expression in his eyes. He took a deep breath and stood up, squaring his shoulders. He looked back at Snape again.

"Everything's going to be all right, Spartacus," the boy whispered. "Just keep still and quiet, OK?" He swept the cover over the cage and hurriedly fastened the top snap. Then, without another word, he left the room in answer to Dursley's summons, pulling the door shut behind him.

A sudden adrenalin rush forced Snape to his feet despite his many hurts. He frantically circled the perimeter of the cage, trying to find a weak place to push against. He gnashed his teeth furiously with frustration.

_Merlin! Why couldn't I have come to before Potter put me back in here? I could have transformed and apparated us away, put an end to this nonsense and to hell with Potter finding out I'm an animagus!_

He stilled for a moment. The house was ominously quiet. That couldn't last, he knew. Dursley would be infuriated that his nephew had taken a swing at his son.

_That muggle will half kill him._

The thought spurred him into action again, and he resumed circling desperately, fruitlessly trying to find a way out.


	12. Chapter 11

Trying to calm his racing heart, Snape made an effort to slow down and carefully assess the situation. It was difficult – he could not remember the last time he felt this helpless and frustrated.

Yes, he could…the last time was when he realized the Dark Lord was targeting Lily.

Now Lily's child was in trouble, the child who had been caring for him, Snape, for weeks, and all his thoughts of bitterness and animosity toward James's son had fled, at least temporarily, in the immediacy of the situation.

All at once his eye caught something different. The door to the cage looked a little…off, somehow. He peered closer. Yes…the latch was bent. It had definitely not been that way before. That heavy-handed muggle boy, the friend of the cousin, must have damaged it when he was reaching in to snatch Snape up. Perhaps, with just a bit of pressure–

His furiously working mind was jarred by a sound of jumbled footsteps pounding up the stairs. It sounded like a herd of charging hippogriffs.

Peering through the gap in the cover over the owl cage, Snape saw the bedroom door burst open with a bang, and then Potter was flying across the room and landing hard against the bed.

Vernon Dursley strode into the bedroom after his nephew, slammed the door shut behind him, and turned to face the boy, who was scrambling to his feet. The big man took no notice of the cage at all, instead focusing his complete attention on the fifteen-year-old in front of him.

Seeing them close together, Snape was struck anew by the differences between the muggle and his nephew. Dursley towered over Potter by at least seven inches and outweighed him by a good eighty pounds or better. With his purple face and bristling mustache, the man looked almost demented. Potter, on the other hand, was white but composed, his smaller, slight figure straight and silent by his bed, watching his uncle with an expression that was somehow both grave and fatalistic.

For an endless moment, the two regarded each other silently. Then Dursley's hands went to his waist and he began to unbuckle his belt.

Snape's stomach turned over at this and his heartbeat kicked up a notch. _Surely not again, not so soon_, he thought, appalled, as memories of his own father crowded unbidden into his mind. He looked quickly at Potter, but the boy's eyes were following the motion of his uncle's hands as the older man slid the strip of thick leather through the belt loops, brought the two ends together and wound them once around his right hand. To Snape's consternation, the boy seemed neither panicked nor even surprised. His look was one of calm but weary acceptance.

"Well?" the muggle man barked suddenly, startling Snape and drawing both his and Potter's eyes to his seething face. "You know the drill, boy…get to it!"

Potter regarded his uncle warily, then seemed to decide to make one bid for a reprieve.

"I've never said anything, ever," the boy began in a quiet voice.

Snape thought he might be deliberately pitching his voice low to keep it from trembling.

"But that doesn't mean I never will," Potter went on, speaking a little more strongly. "If my headmaster knew about th–"

The belt flashed out suddenly, causing Snape to flinch violently and Potter to give a yell of surprise as the strip of leather hit him across the face, sending his glasses spinning through the air.

Dursley stepped forward, looking positively demented.

"You _dare_ to threaten me, boy!" he ground out. Then he seemed to make an effort to calm himself.

"You listen to me, boy, and listen well," Dursley went on in a slightly calmer tone, a cunning look in his eye that Snape did not like at all. "You think that crackpot old fool who teaches you magic tricks would step in to stop me disciplining you, do you? Who do you think left you here in the first place?"

Potter stared up at his uncle, transfixed.

"That headmaster of yours left you on our doorstep, as you ruddy well know," Dursley continued coldly. "Why do you think that was? I'll tell you why – he didn't want to give us a chance to refuse you. He knew damn well no one wanted to deal with you, and he knew that I had a better chance than anyone else of getting you to toe the mark, not that I was raising my hand for the job!"

Potter was so white Snape thought he might actually sway on his feet.

"That's not true," the boy declared, and now his voice was shaking a little.

"Don't believe me, do you?" The muggle man's sneer was worthy of Snape himself. "I'll tell you what then…send that headmaster of yours a letter, tell him I'm planning to take my belt to you, but I'll wait until I hear what he has to say. If you hear back from him that he doesn't find that acceptable, I'll let you off. But you won't, I can guarantee it. And you know it, too."

The bluff was well-played, Snape had to admit. The muggle sounded brusque, confident, even magnanimous. Somewhere, deep inside him, Potter _had_ to know his uncle's words weren't true, but he simply continued to stare at the man, his green eyes huge and solemn as a much younger child's.

"Well, go on boy, do it! Get that ruddy bird of yours out and send it. I'm waiting," said Dursley, upping the stakes still more. "Do it, if you're so sure that Dumble-whatsis will take your side. If you're not, then get that shirt I put on your ungrateful back _off_ and take what's coming to you!"

Snape looked back at Potter again. The boy's eyes were fastened on his uncle's as he hesitated. He swallowed once. Then, without pleading or protesting, he slowly pulled his t-shirt over his head, folded it carefully, and laid it on the bed. Without waiting to be told, he crossed the room to the bare wall and stood in front of it. He was now about five feet in front of the cage in which, unbeknownst to him, his potions professor was imprisoned and watching everything that transpired.

Potter faced the wall for a moment, arms at his sides. He took a deep breath, then lifted both hands until they were shoulder height and about a shoulder's width apart, and, leaning forward slightly, placed his palms flat against the wall in front of him. He set his jaw and stared straight ahead of him as though it were not a wall before him, but a window to a faraway place only he could perceive.

Dursley stepped forward and raised the belt high – and still, not until the big man actually brought the leather strap down hard across Potter's shoulders did Snape truly believe that the man would do it.

The sharp _crack_ splintered the stillness of the room. Potter bit his lip and braced himself more firmly in place. The lash was followed by two more in quick succession, then more – but while his fingers jerked convulsively once or twice, the boy's palms never once moved from the wall, and apart from a single, sharp intake of breath, he never made a sound.

It didn't take Snape long to lose count of the blows. The muggle was hitting his nephew fast and hard, wielding the belt with greater force, it seemed to Snape, than his own father had ever done. But then, Tobias had usually been drunk as a lord when he took after his son with his strap, and Dursley was quite obviously stone-cold sober. Snape could not decide if this was better or worse.

The potions master backed away from the gap in the cover; scrambled up the side of the cage to the door, and began applying pressure to the bent latch with his teeth. But even though he could no longer see what was happening, there was nothing he could do to shut out the sounds: Dursley's grunts of effort, Potter's quick, light breathing and occasional hiss of pain, the awful sound of leather biting into flesh. It seemed to go on endlessly, much longer than the punishments Snape had endured as a boy at Spinner's End…though they had seemed endless to him, of course. His own "discipline" usually ended with his mother running into the room, putting herself between him and his father, wrapping her arms around him from behind and protecting him from further blows. More often than not, this action brought Tobias Snape to his senses, and he would drop the belt and stagger away, sometimes sobbing drunkenly with a remorse that, regrettably, never lasted to sobriety. But Petunia Dursley did not come to intervene between her husband and her sister's son, nor did the boy seem to expect any such intervention. He simply gritted his teeth and endured the punishment in near-silence.

_Stupid young fool!_ Snape thought angrily, tearing so hard at the metal latch that he thought his teeth might break off. His sense of helplessness made him feel furious with both the bullying muggle and with Potter himself. _Idiotic, pointless Gryffindor pride…he could end this sooner if he'd allow himself to cry out! Such stoicism will only aggravate the brute…Merlin, just yell out once!_

Truly, Durlsey seemed livid at his failure to evoke a reaction from his nephew. His frustration fueled his anger – and the strength of his arm. But, overweight and out of shape as he was, his strength had to give out soon, Snape thought. He was already panting and becoming winded, sweat trickling down the sides of his pudgy face.

There was a pause. Snape hesitated, wondering if it was finally over. Then he heard a jingle, a sudden swish that was somehow heavier than before, a meaty _thunk,_ and this time Potter _did_ cry out, a sound that was both pain and surprise.

Snape peered through the gap in the cover again. Potter had twisted his upper body around to stare with wide, shocked eyes at his uncle. Snape noticed with a pang that the boy was careful to remain in place. This submission from the unquenchable Gryffindor made him wonder what methods Dursley had used to enforce this training…and what the boy knew he could expect if he broke position.

Dursley was grinning sadistically at his nephew. He held up the belt for the boys' scrutiny, and Snape realized the bastard had struck Potter with the buckle end.

For a moment, the man and the boy stared at one another. Then Potter's eyes hardened, his jaw set and he defiantly jerked himself back around to face the wall again, his expression angry and contemptuous. Snape winced, guessing that this would incense the muggle, and sure enough Dursley's grin dropped off his face instantly, to be replaced with a look of fury. He raised the belt again, the buckle end dangling free.

As the man continued beating the boy, this time with the buckle end of the belt, Snape gripped the cage door firmly in his hand-like front paws, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, and held it steady as he frantically worked to bend the latch with his teeth.

Potter was still not crying out, but he couldn't keep from sucking his breath in with each heavy blow. Snape thought about the bruises and cuts the heavy, steel belt buckle would leave and gave an almighty wrench with his teeth. He felt something _give_.

_Got it!_

As Potter dropped hard to his knees, still somehow keeping his hands on the wall, Snape rammed his good shoulder forcefully against the cage door. It sprang open so suddenly that he tumbled out with a squeak, plummeting toward the floor. He twisted his furry little body so that he was right side up, concentrated hard–

And instead of paws, black leather boots made contact with the hardwood floor.

Ignoring the searing pain in his shoulder and ribs, Snape whirled around, plunging his hand into his cloak and retrieving his wand in a move so fluid it would have drawn the full admiration of Flitwick, who had once won the all-Britain freestyle dueling championship. His fingers closed over the wand, bringing it up and pointing at Dursley as part of the same motion, and without uttering the spell aloud he blasted the muggle across the room, through the door with a force that reduced it to splinters, and on down the stairs.

There was a shrill scream, and Petunia came hurtling down the hallway, hysterically crying out, "_Vernon_!"

Another swish of Snape's wand and her mouth vanished, leaving blank, smooth skin behind that was somehow more horrible-looking than a deformity would have been. Behind that mouthless face, her tongue squirmed and she made muffled cries of horror, backing away from the top of the stairs and waving her arms helplessly.

The Dursley boy came rushing after his parents. Dudley paused at the door to Potter's bedroom, staring in at the chaos within in shock: his cousin, back streaked with blood, leaning against the wall like he was about to lose consciousness, and the very tall and frightening stranger in black brandishing a wand. Before he could scream or run, he got to see something few had ever seen – and those who had witnessed it in the past had not wanted to see it again.

Snape grinned.

"Well met by moonlight, my young friend," the wizard whispered his first words in weeks in a silk-and-granite voice that was chilling in its careful refinement, and with a flick of his wand, a fat, blonde guinea pig stood where Dudley had been a moment before.

Snape gave his wand a lazy swish, and the squealing guinea pig sailed into the room, toward the hamster cage on the shelf. The door flew open, then snapped shut again as Dudley flew through it.

"Don't worry, boy," Snape crooned icily. "I'm sure your friend will be so good as to come and play with you, as he so kindly did with me."

The muggles dealt with adequately (_for now, anyway,_ Snape thought vindictively), the wizard turned back to Potter.

From his new height, the shabby little room seemed smaller than ever. And Potter, too, seemed…so much _smaller_. Deadly pale, he had risen to his feet and was staring at Snape in utter shock.

Snape felt strangely awkward. Everything had changed for him, and he did not know what to say or do.

The boy's lips moved.

"Am I dreaming?" he whispered finally.

"No," Snape said quietly.

Potter lifted a hand to his forehead, trying to take it all in. Snape saw, with a pang, that blood was tricking over his shoulders. He felt afraid to look at the boy's back.

"Spartacus," the boy said suddenly. He looked up. "You were…him…all the time?"

The green eyes were strangely pleading.

Snape wished desperately that he had the right words to say.

But all he could manage was, "Yes."

Snape had expected a look of horror to accompany this realization – even of embarrassment. If he were completely honest with himself, he would admit that a small, mean-spirited part of him was looking forward to seeing that look on James's face.

What Snape had _not_ been prepared to see was the look of profound loss, of wounded betrayal and intense sorrow in the green eyes that transported him back to that awful day by the lake, when he had lost Lily for good. It lasted for a heartbeat, then two…then the eyes lost the depth Snape had grown to expect as Potter's expression closed off.


	13. Chapter 12

It was like being transported back to fourth year.

Harry remembered the sense of complete disbelief that had enveloped him when he'd finally understood that the man he had come to trust and lean on was _not_ Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, but a cruel imposter who had used and manipulated him every step of the way. The almost-ten months he had spent learning to respect, revere and even look on the man as an older, wiser uncle meant nothing. The shock and betrayal had been sickening.

In some ways, this was worse.

If someone had asked him, Harry probably would have said that he couldn't imagine caring for any pet more than he cared for Hedwig. She was the second real friend he'd ever had (Hagrid was the first), and his only companion during the lonely, weary months at the Durlseys.

Spartacus, however, had become a very close second.

Unlike Hedwig who, while affectionate, could also be temperamental, Spartacus had always been cool, reserved and calm. Harry had found the bat's quiet demeanor reassuring, even soothing. He had come to appreciate its serene presence at the end of a hard day of chores, nagging and abuse. It had become a part of the refuge that was his shabby little room. Its stoic acceptance of his clumsy medical care had touched and inspired him. Talking to the bat had felt natural, and had lifted a great burden of tension from Harry. The bat's presence had given Harry a feeling of stability.

Now he learned that none of it had been real. Spartacus had not been real – had, in fact, actually been someone who hated him, who did not care if he, Harry, was hurting. Harry felt as though solid ground he had been standing on had suddenly begun to shift.

He wondered if Ron had felt this way when he'd learned that Scabbers was really Peter Pettigrew.

A wave of intense nausea suddenly swept through Harry, and he swayed on his feet. The awful scene with Dudley and Piers, the intense fear for the bat in his care, the dreadful anticipation of Vernon's wrath, the punishment itself and the jangle it made of his nerves, followed by the horrible truth about Spartacus hit him all at once.

"I'm…I'm going to be sick!" he gasped, and Snape, looking tall and huge and somehow _wrong_ in Harry's small room, swiftly conjured a bucket and placed it front of him – not a moment too soon, as Harry dropped to his knees and retched violently, straining his broken ribs.

He felt vaguely ashamed that Snape should see him like this, then felt an hysterical urge to laugh – what difference did it make if Snape saw him being sick? Was that any more humiliating than knowing the man had heard all his deepest thoughts and been witness to his darkest secrets?

The urge to laugh was suddenly replaced by an urge to cry. He remembered telling Spartacus (_Merlin! was it just last night?_) that he wished he _could_ cry, flushed painfully, and brutally forced the traitorous feeling down. The same fierce pride that had kept Harry from crying out when Vernon had been beating him, that kept him from turning to McGonagall about Umbridge's sadistic detentions, came to aid him now.

It was hard, though…the horrible sting in his back was nothing to the ache in his heart.

"_Accio_ calming draughts," he heard Snape say somewhere above his head, and the loose floorboard flipped over as a pair of potions bottles flew out of the space below and into the older wizard's hand.

"I don't need it," Harry heard himself say coldly, and he jerked away when Snape tried to put a steadying hand on his elbow.

"Take it, Potter," Snape said calmly. "I'm taking some myself. I have performed magic, and the ministry will no doubt be sending someone to investigate shortly. We will need to be gone from here, and it is essential that we keep our heads and act quickly."

Harry hesitated; then, seeing the sense in this, grudgingly accepted one of the bottles. He downed it quickly, and almost immediately his hammering heartbeat slowed, the blood rushing in his eardrums cleared, and his breathing deepened (he had been closer to hyperventilating than he had realized). It became easier to cram his churning emotions into a mental box to be hidden in a dark corner of his mind. As his feelings receded from his mind and heart like waves on a shore, so did his senses somewhat, and he felt as though he were seeing and hearing everything around him from a distance.

Glancing up at Snape, Harry saw the man's black eyes fixed on him. His expression was strangely unreadable, devoid of its usual contempt and animosity.

_Great,_ Harry thought bitterly, _now he pities me._ He thought that might almost be worse than the contempt…or perhaps he despised him now more than ever. The savior of the wizarding world, at the mercy of a bullying muggle.

Snape, meanwhile, likewise drank his potion. Tossing the bottle aside, he pulled out his wand and conjured what Harry immediately recognized as a patronus. The younger wizard was dimly amazed to see that his dour potions master's patronus was an exquisite, silvery doe.

Snape seemed to commune silently with the doe for a moment, then with a flick of his wand, it bounded through the window and disappeared.

Snape then turned toward Harry's trunk. With another flick of his wand, the lid sprang open. He moved the wand in a circular motion, and the air was suddenly filled with Harry's belongings, clothes flying out of the wardrobe, books sailing off the desk, wand, photo album and potions rising out from the space under the loose floorboard, all of them arranging themselves neatly inside the trunk. Even the Firebolt and the owl cage, shrinking as they came, fit into the trunk.

Once everything was packed, Snape closed the trunk and used a shrinking spell to reduce it to the size of a matchbox. He picked it up and stowed it away in his robes. He raised his wand again.

"_Accio_ glasses," he said, and Harry's glasses flew into his hand. He held them out to Harry; the boy took them in his numb fingers and put them on, fumbling a bit as he did so.

For a long moment, Snape regarded Harry silently. Harry got the feeling the man wanted to say something to him.

"Come, Potter," Snape said finally.

Harry suddenly shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. It was a warm day, but he felt cold all over. The pain from the beating and his fight with Dudley had ebbed somewhat, but he felt weak and ill, as though he were coming down with, or just recovering from, a high fever. Clad only in Dudley's baggy jeans, the waist cinched in with a belt, and battered trainers, Harry felt naked and vulnerable. The reasonable part of him, the part that had been fostered by his years at Hogwarts, by his friends and by the caring adults in his life, acknowledged that what had happened to him was unacceptable; the part that had been shaped by the Dursleys during his formative years made him feel ashamed to have others see the marks of his punishment – marks he couldn't help feeling he'd somehow earned, though he would have done nothing differently.

Something shifted briefly in the onyx gaze of the tall professor, and Snape suddenly removed his summer travel cloak. He shook it out once, like a housewife shaking out a rug, and it shortened magically. Carefully, he eased the lightweight material over Harry's shoulders and drew it around the thin body, covering the boy to his ankles.

Harry looked up in surprise, a lump forming in his throat – could Snape have guessed, somehow, how he was feeling?

He retreated from the thought at once. The man probably just didn't want Harry's injuries drawing attention.

"Come," Snape repeated, and Harry followed him numbly from the room.

_I wonder where he's taking me,_ Harry thought dully. _Probably Grimmauld Place._

He couldn't bring himself to care much. In fact, the thought of going to his room there and shutting the door on everyone and everything was strangely attractive.

He hoped no one would be there. Knowing that he had spent the past month with Snape, he didn't even want Hedwig nearby. He wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to bring himself to talk to her again with any feeling of security. How could he know she was what she appeared to be?

The sudden deflation of his spirit afforded him a welcome relief from the pain of losing Spartacus, which felt like the two ends of a broken bone grinding together as he walked.

Uncle Vernon lay on his back at the foot of the stairs, groaning. Snape's mouth tightened, and he jerked his wand. Instantly, the belt Vernon still clutched in his right hand vanished in a puff of smoke, crumbling into a pile of ashes on the floor.

Aunt Petunia was kneeling next to her husband. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes huge and frightened. Pathetic mewling noises emitted from behind her mouthless face.

Harry looked at her for a moment. Unwillingly, a small dart of compassion flickered within his bruised heart.

"Professor."

Snape looked back at him over his shoulder. "Potter?"

"Could you put my aunt right, please, before we go." Harry marveled at how dull his voice sounded even to his own ears.

There was that strange flicker of emotion again in Snape's eyes, there and gone like insects flashing across black water.

"Why?"

Harry thought a moment, then said, "I don't like to see her like that."

Harry could sense Snape surveying him, but he didn't look up. After a moment, the potions master waved his wand and Aunt Petunia's mouth reappeared. She uttered a great gasp, put her hands over her face, and began to cry helplessly.

Snape walked on without looking back. Harry followed him wordlessly, his eyes on the floor.

* * *

He led Potter through the front door of Number 4 and paused on the sidewalk.

"Potter."

The boy looked up. The lifeless expression in the green eyes unnerved the potions master more than he cared to admit.

"Come here to me." Snape held out his left arm.

To his astonishment and consternation, Potter obeyed immediately and without question. Snape knew the boy had never apparated before, and this ready compliance with the invitation to come closer to his most hated professor for an unknown purpose worried Snape. Had the indomitable Gryffindor spirit finally been broken?

He studied the boy through narrowed eyes. Potter looked like he had been through a war zone, and Snape suspected he was teetering on the edge of shock.

Nothing he could do about that here. Best get the boy away as quickly as possible.

"Potter."

The boy raised his weary, apathetic gaze to Snape's once again.

"Grip my arm as tightly as you can with both of your own, and stay close to me."

Again, Potter obeyed without a word. Snape turned on the spot, concentrating hard–

– and then they were standing in an old forest, tall trees and overgrown brush all around. Darkness was falling.

Potter had stumbled slightly and caught his breath when they landed, and for a moment Snape was rewarded by returning life in the boy's face, even if it was alarm – _after all, fear is better than_ nothing – but then Potter looked up at him, the closed expression crept back, and his eyes returned to the ground. Again he asked no questions, and Snape found this lack of curiosity on the part of the normally inquisitive Gryffindor disquieting.

He took a moment to study his charge.

At almost-sixteen, Potter was at that age when the lines between the boy and the man have become blurred. While his uncle was beating him, he had seemed like a man to Snape, holding himself straight, his chin high, scorning to cry out. Now, wrapped in Snape's summer cloak, which was still too large for him despite the shrinking charm the potions master had used to keep it from dragging along the ground, he looked like a young boy, in spite of the disturbingly dead expression on his bruised face.

In dire need of cutting, Potter's untidy shock of hair did not hide the sprawling black eye, or the wide, red welt on his cheek, jaw and part of his nose from where his uncle had hit him in the face with the belt. The split lip was swollen and crusted with dried blood.

Snape wished he had time to clean the boy up. What he really wanted to do was heal his hurts – the physical ones, anyway – but that would have to wait until they were settled in a safe place.

He watched the boy, feeling an unfamiliar yearning in his heart.

Everything had changed for him, but nothing had changed for Potter. He, Snape, had had weeks to learn about this boy's heart, mind and soul. Potter, on the other hand, knew nothing more about Snape than what he already believed at the end of the term, except that Snape had been listening to his private thoughts and been a witness during what he thought were his weakest moments. This would hardly endear Snape to him, and perhaps the damage that Snape himself had fostered since the boy first arrived at school, on top of this latest betrayal, would be permanent.

Snape realized now that he wanted to be more than a protector to Lily's child. It had hurt him when Harry had recoiled from his touch back at Privet Drive, though he understood why the boy had done so. But he did not want Lily's child to hate and fear him.

The practical, Slytherin part of Snape's mind took over. _You can do nothing about that now, in this place. Do your duty and get the boy to a safe location. What comes after will come._

"Follow me now, Potter."

Snape walked on without looking back. After a moment, he heard the boy's soft footfalls behind him.

They walked for about half an hour. Full dark was almost upon them now, and Snape brought out his wand to cast lumos, gently prodding Potter to do the same.

They rounded a final copse of trees and stepped out into the open once more. Now a wide expanse opened in front of them, revealing the towering edifice with lit windows about a quarter of a mile away.

"No!"

Snape spun around. Potter was standing stock-still, staring up at Hogwarts castle with a look of pure horror on his face.

"Potter. What–?"

"Why are we here? I thought – I thought you were taking me to Grimmauld Place!"

The boy's tone was accusing, and nearly shrill with panic. After almost an hour of his silent apathy, Snape was caught wrong-footed.

"Grimmauld Place?" he said slowly. "Perhaps, at a later time…but now we need to see the headmast– "

"_No!"_

So startled was Snape when Potter spun around and bolted back the way they had come that he almost lost the boy in the trees before he was able to stop him.

"_Protego!"_ Snape cried, and Potter ran up so hard against his shield charm that he was knocked down.

Snape hated to do it to him when the boy was already in so much pain, but he didn't dare let Potter get away…not in this state.

"_Potter!"_ As always, Snape's fear expressed itself as anger, and his tone came out much more harshly than he had intended. "What on earth is the matter with y–"

"I won't see him, I can't! Professor, please, _please_ don't do this…I don't _want_ him to know! I don't want _anyone_ to know!"

Snape stared at the boy. His face was so pale it shone in the darkness, his green eyes huge and fearful in his thin, battered face. He looked far more frightened at the thought of Dumbledore knowing what had happened to him than he had when his uncle, belt in hand, had stood towering over him, and the potions master felt his heart rip.

He made an effort to keep his voice calm.

"Potter…surely you must realize that the headmaster has to know about this."

"_Why?"_ Potter yelled. Snape could feel him trying to get himself under control. And failing.

"I've been at Privet Drive long enough, the wards should be in place now," the boy went on, trying to force himself to keep his voice steady. "I can spend the rest of the summer at the Burrow, or Grimmauld Place, if that's safer for the Weasleys. Next year I'm of age, so I'll only have to go back once m–"

"_Go back!"_ Now it was Snape who had to fight to keep himself under control. "Do you truly imagine that you'll be going back there for one moment, let alone an entire summer? _If you live that long?_" he added with a sneer, throwing the boy's own words back at him.

Potter flushed up to the roots of his hair, then his shoulders slumped.

"What else is there to do," he said wearily, passing a hand under his glasses to give his eyes a rub. "I have to go back. I know it. Dumbledore knows it, too…and he probably knows about all of _this_, anyway," the boy added, his eyes hardening. He waved his hand vaguely over his face, indicating the black eye and all it signified.

Snape stilled. For a moment there was no sound but the wind blowing through the trees in the Forbidden Forest.

"Do you really believe that, Harry?" Snape asked quietly.

For the first time, he had called Potter by his name. In response, the boy's eyes grew moist for a moment before he resolutely forced the tears back. Snape grudgingly admired his control.

Potter swallowed hard and turned away. When he spoke, his voice was steady.

"I think…he knows most everything that goes on around here. I know he wouldn't have left me there, if there'd been another way. He has to…do what's best in the long run, I guess. It's not easy for him."

Snape was speechless. Potter had expressed his fears that Dumbledore knew or suspected the abuse…even feared that Dumbledore felt he "needed" or "deserved" it. But Snape had chalked these fears up to the nighttime uncertainties of a frightened, angry, abused boy. Surely he didn't truly believe it.

But looking at the young wizard staring off into the distance under the darkening sky, a borrowed cloak fluttering around his malnourished body, Snape realized suddenly that this was _exactly_ what Potter believed…he felt an odd, sinking sensation in his stomach, and compassion welled up in him for this boy.

He waited a moment before speaking, then said slowly and clearly, "Albus Dumbledore would never allow any student of his to be hurt if he could do something to stop it. That especially goes for you, Potter. I would know, having observed his herculean efforts to keep you safe. And, loath as I am to shatter your illusions on the subject, the man is not all-powerful and all-knowing. I wish that he were."

He sighed, but before he could continue, Potter interrupted him, a look of desperate hope on his face.

"Then don't tell him if he doesn't know, sir. He has enough on his mind–"

"Potter. You will cease these arguments at once. I've already informed him we were on our way with my patronus."

This was not precisely true. Snape had actually spelled his patronus to let Dumbledore know that _he_, Snape, was alive, uncompromised so far as he knew, and on his way to make a report.

The truth was that Snape was dreading having to tell Albus about what had been going on at Potter's home in Surrey. He knew it would hurt the old wizard terribly, that he would blame himself for what Potter had suffered. But it couldn't be helped. Snape had a duty as Potter's teacher to inform the headmaster what was going on with a student, and no amount of pleading from this boy, however much Snape owed him, would swerve him from that course.

Potter must have sensed Snape's resolve because he looked ready – foolishly, Snape thought, with a curl of his lip – to bolt again.

"_Potter_." His tone was low and dangerous. "We are going to the headmaster now. You cannot avoid this," he added sharply, cutting the boy off before he could utter the plea that was forming on his lips. "I _will_ be obeyed."

"Why do you even care?" the boy yelled. "Haven't you done enough already, spying on me for weeks, making me think you were something you weren't? You probably can't wait to tell all your Slytherins how famous Harry Pot–"

"_Enough!"_ Snape's shout caused the boy to wince. "I'm not above stunning you, Potter, and levitating you to the castle if that's what is required! And I hardly think you want to appear even _more_ helpless than you already have today."

As soon as those last words left his mouth, Snape wished he could recall them – particularly when Potter recoiled as though Snape had slapped him, his face draining of color.

Enough.

Snape motioned with his wand toward the castle. "Walk ahead of me, where I can keep an eye on you."

For a long moment, Potter stared at him. Then his expression again closed off, and without another word he lifted his head high and started up to the castle. He looked like a man heading for the gallows, but determined to be brave about it since there was no escape.

That walk seemed to take an eternity.

As they crossed the entrance hall, Snape found himself wondering briefly what it must be like for Potter, being at the nearly deserted castle during the summer.

At the gargoyle outside of the entrance to the headmaster's office, Snape gave the password: "Canary cream."

The gargoyle leaped aside, and Snape motioned for Potter to stand on the revolving stairs in front of him – he was taking no chances on the boy bolting even now. At the top of the stairs, he knocked once.

"Enter," came Albus's voice through the door.

Snape opened the door, then stood back, motioning the boy to go through first. Though it was far too late now, Potter gave him one last, pleading look. At Snape's unrelenting expression, he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and walked ahead of the potions master into the office, his chin high.

At that brave and somehow poignant gesture, Snape's heart went out to him more than the boy would ever know.


	14. Chapter 13

Dumbledore's office was ablaze with candlelight, and the great wizard himself, resplendent in spangled silver robes, was standing in front of his desk. He had apparently been pacing, as he so often did, waiting for Snape's arrival with obvious eagerness. He turned as the door opened.

"Severus!" the old man said cheerfully, glad relief in his face and voice. "At last! My boy, I've been so worried –"

He broke off suddenly, having spotted Harry. The silvery-grey eyebrows went up.

Snape could well imagine how this looked to Dumbledore. His resident spy missing for a month, vanished from guard duty without a hint of what had happened from either the Order or the Death Eaters, while all went on apparently as usual at Potter's house. Then, out of nowhere, Snape's patronus appears, heralding his arrival and warning him about possible ministry involvement at Privet Drive. Then the resident spy himself shows up – not alone, as Dumbledore might have expected, but with the golden boy himself in tow, wearing an ill-fitting cloak and sporting a black eye, split lip and an angry weal across one cheek.

"Severus," Dumbledore began. "What –"

He stopped, at a loss for words (_for perhaps the first time in living memory,_ Snape thought sardonically). There was no time to reflect on the anomaly, though.

"Headmaster, we have a great deal to discuss," Snape said swiftly. "But first I must warn you that I performed magic at Privet Drive – magic that Potter will likely be blamed for by the ministry."

Dumbledore became alert at once. "How long ago?"

"Perhaps an hour," Snape replied. "Maybe closer to two."

At once, Dumbledore strode over to the fireplace and grabbed a handful of floo powder from a pot on the mantel. Then he turned back to Potter and Snape, conjured two squashy, flowered armchairs, and waved at the wizards to sit.

"Wait here, both of you," he ordered. He tossed the floo powder into the fireplace and stepped in as emerald green flames blazed up.

"Ministry of Magic," he called, and vanished.

Snape moved to one of the armchairs and smoothly seated himself, leaning back with his elbows on the arms of the chair, steepling his fingers before him. After a moment, Potter also sat down, sitting well forward to avoid having his ravaged back make contact with the cushion. His hands were balled in tight fists on his thighs, and he stared unseeingly at the floor. Though his face betrayed no trace of emotion, he was pale and visibly trembling.

More troubled by this evidence of Potter's fragility than he liked to admit, Snape glanced around the room. Fawkes the phoenix was cuddled down in a nest of ashes in the tray beneath his golden perch. He had endured an early Burning in order to protect Dumbledore at the ministry a month before, and was in no fit state to heal anyone. Snape thought this was just as well – he wanted to wait to heal Potter until Dumbledore had seen the injuries for himself. This would be hard on his mentor, but Snape cringed at the thought of having to say the words to him and was guiltily glad to let the boy's state speak for itself.

Dumbledore's office looked as it always had. The delicate silver instruments whirred softly, and the portraits of Hogwarts headmasters and headmistresses past all appeared to be sleeping peacefully…save one.

Armando Dippet surveyed Potter with interest from behind Dumbledore's desk.

"Ah, Mr. Potter!" the corpulent wizard called cheerfully. "Back again! But what happened to your face, my boy?"

Potter glanced up, then down again. "Nothing, sir," he muttered.

Dippet frowned, then brightened.

"Well, never mind, dear boy. Whatever it is, Dumbledore will set it to rights! Very fond of you he is, I hope you know!"

Potter shrugged – a habit Snape abhorred in all the students.

_I'll have that bloody shrug out of him before he leaves school, or I'll know the reason why not! _He thought irritably.

Dippet said, a little sternly, "I hope you're not planning on a repeat of last month's rampage, Mr. Potter…you're really too old for such nonsense."

Narrowing his eyes at this, Snape glanced over at Potter. The boy gave him a sidewise look, flushed, and looked down again.

"No, sir."

"Well, that's all right then!" Dippet said brightly. "No need to look so downhearted, my boy…Dumbledore put everything right in a moment, and was very unhappy that you were so distressed…very upset indeed."

Before Potter could reply to this, green flames burst up in the fireplace again and Dumbledore stepped through, brushing ash from his robes.

Snape automatically stood up as the old wizard stepped off the hearth, and Potter did the same.

"Well," Dumbledore began. "I have spoken with Rufus Scrimgeour, and it appears that aurors were sent to Privet Drive to investigate the magic that was performed there. Vernon Dursley informed them that his family was attacked by a grown wizard, who then left the premises with Mr. Potter. The assumption was that Death Eaters had attempted to abscond with Harry, and I did not disabuse the minister of this notion."

Snape raised his eyebrows at this. Dumbledore looked at him keenly.

"Had there indeed been a Death Eater attack at Privet Drive, I would have been notified immediately," Dumbledore went on, glancing at one of the silver instruments near his desk. "In the interest of smoothing things over until I could learn more about what really _did_ happen, I informed Rufus that you, Severus, were able to retrieve Mr. Potter, and that you were both safe at Hogwarts."

He paused here, waiting, perhaps, for Snape or Potter to speak. When neither of them did, he continued.

"I'm relieved, Severus, to see you relatively unhurt, though I imagine you have a great deal to report. I must ask you to proceed in bringing me up to speed."

Snape hesitated a moment, not sure how to begin. He did not want to discuss the Death Eaters in Little Whinging in front of Potter, nor was he sure Dumbledore would want him to do so.

Finally, he began.

"As per your orders, Headmaster, I was taking my turn keeping an eye on Mr. Potter when I was…injured." Here Snape looked significantly at Dumbledore, who eyed him keenly, then nodded slightly. _He gets it,_ Snape thought, relieved. He took a deep breath and continued a little more easily.

"I was transformed at the time, and when I regained consciousness," here Snape flushed slightly and curled his lip, "I found myself in Potter's bedroom, ensconced in his owl's cage. Apparently he found me in his backyard."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled at this. "Dear me," he murmured, his mustache twitching. But when he glanced at Harry and saw the dark red flush that had spread over the boy's face, his look sobered again. "Pray continue."

"Potter did an…admirable…job in caring for my injuries while I was in bat form," Snape said reluctantly. "Whilst caged, I could not, of course, transform, and on those occasions when I was not caged I _elected_ not to transform, deeming it more prudent to keep my animagus abilities hidden if I could." He added unnecessarily, "I am, of course, an _unregistered_ animagus."

He looked sidewise at Potter, but if the boy was at all softened by his praise or his explanations, he did not show it.

Snape sighed to himself and pressed on.

"It became necessary for me to reveal myself so that I could…perform the duty for which I was sent to Privet Drive in the first place," he finished lamely. A cop-out if ever there was one.

Dumbledore stared at him for a moment, then a look of alarm slowly dawned over his face as he realized what Snape was saying. Snape would not have transformed in front of Potter unless he had been forced to do so in order to protect Potter. Since Potter had clearly not been in immediate danger from Death Eaters, that left…

The old wizard turned toward the boy, taking in the marks on his face with growing trepidation.

"Harry," the headmaster said quietly, "what has happened to you?"

Potter hesitated. "I got in a fight with my cousin, sir."

"_Potter_." Snape was angry. That the boy would _dare_ to prevaricate with Snape standing right there! He gave Potter a glare that the boy returned in full measure – but with a mute plea mixed in that caused Snape's anger to evaporate, leaving only a weary sadness.

"Albus," Snape said gently, turning back to the headmaster, "there's more to it than that."

Dumbledore stared at him, dread growing in his blue eyes. It was rare that Snape gave him his first name.

The tension suddenly became too much for the potions master.

_Enough_, Snape thought furiously. He pulled out his wand, pointed it at Potter, and made a short, jerking motion reminiscent of a fly fisherman using a rod to play a fish. Potter's borrowed cloak flew at once from the boy's shoulders to Snape's outstretched hand. Potter gasped as it went – drying blood had caused the cloak to adhere to his wounds, and the newly formed scabs tore away as the cloak was roughly pulled off.

Snape winced inwardly. He had not meant to hurt the boy.

Potter took a step back and wrapped his arms around himself as he had back at Privet Drive after Snape had first revealed himself, but he could not hide the bruises on his side, the clear outline of his ribs, or the black-and-blue finger marks on his upper arm from when Dursley had marched him up the stairs just hours ago. White and frozen, Albus stared at the dejected figure, but Snape knew this was not the extent of it, and though his heart ached for his old teacher and the boy both, he knew it had to be done.

"Turn around, Potter," Snape said quietly.

Again the boy looked up, but there was no defiance in his face this time – only a desperate appeal. Snape hardened his heart against the sight of Lily's eyes looking at him with that desperate, pleading expression. He took one step toward Potter, deliberately looming over him, and spoke in his most menacing tone.

"_Turn around_, Potter…or_ I_ will turn you around."

Potter shrank back a step, his face paper-white, his eyes never leaving Snape's. Then, shoulders hunched, he stared down at the floor. Snape saw him swallow hard as he turned on the spot, almost as if he were apparating away.

Snape had no doubt that, in that moment, the boy would have given everything he owned if only he _could_ apparate away from that place.

He did not look at the boy's back or at Dumbledore's reaction, instead watching Potter's face. Potter squeezed his eyes shut and flinched when he heard his headmaster's sharp intake of breath.

There was a long, awful pause. Then Dumbledore said quietly, his voice shaking a little, "How did you come to have that, Harry?"

Potter swallowed again, raising his head to look at the wall.

"I…I fell–"

Before Snape could angrily refute this, Dumbledore spoke first, and immediately.

"_Harry_." At the anguish in his mentor's voice, Snape turned to look at him. Dumbledore was standing behind his chair, gripping the back of it with both hands so tightly his knuckles were white. There was so much grief, and guilt, and anger in his white face, that Snape was glad Potter was facing away from him and could not see it.

When the old man spoke again, though, his voice was calmer, even gentle.

"Harry. It is all-too-obvious that those marks were made by…by a belt." His voice broke a little over the last word.

Potter whirled around all at once, his mouth working and his eyes flashing.

"Why don't you ask _him_ what happened!' he cried furiously, flinging out his arm to indicate Snape. He stared around wildly, his eyes everywhere but, Snape noticed, on the two men in the room with him.

"This is all his fault," Potter went on fiercely. "If he hadn't been hanging about, spying on me, pretending to be a bat, this would never have happened…I was defending _him_ from my gormless cousin!"

Snape knew the boy's nerves were overwrought, but he still couldn't keep from feeling hurt at this. And, as so often happened, his emotions expressed themselves in derision.

"Is that right?" he drawled with his most contemptuous sneer. "Well, assuming I would need protection from an unqualified wizard, I grant that I may have been the inadvertent cause of today's episode of Dursley family bliss, but what of yesterday's thrashing, Potter? Your dear uncle was not even aware of my presence in the house then! And that doesn't even _begin_ to take into account the many bumps and bruises I've seen on your person over the past few weeks, or the daily insults and endless chores."

Albus went from white to grey.

"_Yesterday_'s thrasing?" he whispered, and Snape suddenly wished he had held his tongue.

The fight seemed to have gone out of Potter all at once, and he stared at the floor again.

"That was different," the boy mumbled. "I deserved that one."

Now both Dumbledore and Snape stilled.

"What did you say?" Dumbledore whispered hoarsely.

Potter raised his face, then, but still would not look Dumbledore in the eyes.

"I…I cheeked him," the boy tried to explain. He paused. Swallowed tightly. "I had it coming."

"Do you really believe that, Harry?" Dumbledore's voice was so sad that Snape felt his own throat catch.

Potter's eyes filled with tears, but he fiercely blinked them back.

"It's not that big a deal," he muttered sullenly, eyes dropping to the floor again.

"Not a 'big deal?'" Dumbledore repeated. He came from behind the desk and approached Potter, but stopped, hands hanging helplessly at his sides, when the boy flinched back.

"No, it's not! I mean – Uncle Vernon's got nothing on Voldemort, right? And his belt's got nothing on the cruciatus curse. That's why you thought it was better for me there, isn't it? That it's bad, but worth it, if I'm safe? Isn't it?"

Snape thought of his own father and closed his eyes.

"Oh, Harry," Dumbledore, retreated behind his desk again to give the boy space. Or perhaps to take a moment to gather himself. "No. I never would have made such a decision as that. I'd have raised you myself if I thought that–"

Potter raised angry, despairing eyes to Dumbledore's aged face.

"What are trying to say, Professor? That you didn't know? Of course you know! You _must_ have known!" His voice was bitter, but Snape thought there was something desperate there, too…as though Potter could not bear the idea that Dumbledore, his idol, who was supposed to be all-knowing, had indeed _not_ known about this.

With a wrench, Snape suddenly realized that for Potter, if life at the Dursleys was hard, still it must be the right thing because _Dumbledore_ himself had put him there and said it was.

If, on the other hand, Dumbledore did _not_ know about the abuse…then anything Potter had suffered at his uncle's hands meant nothing.

Potter himself now confirmed this realization.

"You told me yourself, Professor," the boy said appealingly, taking a step toward the old man, "at the end of last year. You said you knew things were hard for me there, but that I'd at least be safe. You said it hurt you, but you were glad to know I was safe, and glad I wasn't a spoiled prince."

Dumbledore, suddenly seeming older than he ever had to Snape before, dropped into his chair as though his legs could no longer hold him.

"Harry…Harry, you must know that I would never, _never_ allow anyone to hurt you if I could prevent it," he told the boy earnestly. His blue eyes were wet. "I knew, to my pain and regret, that your relatives were ungracious towards you, unloving, even hard when it came to chores and, I assumed from looking at you each September, food…but that they would ever, in their fear of magic and of me, dare to raise a hand to you…" he shook his head. "At the very least…the _very_ least, Harry, I could have placed a spell on our uncle that would render him incapable of acting violently towards you. If you had only come to me–"

"Albus," Snape said warningly, but Potter was already rushing ahead.

"So it's my own fault, is it?" The disillusioned boy cried. "Like Sirius…I don't notice that anyone trusts _me_ with stuff, but I'm supposed to trust _them_…" He broke off suddenly, pressing his knuckles to his eyes.

"All that stuff you said," Potter went on in a low voice, "about caring about me…being proud of me. It doesn't really matter, does it, what happens to me, so long as I stay in decent enough shape to face down Voldemort in the end."

"The decisions I made regarding your welfare…were difficult," said Dumbledore, forcing the words out with a supreme effort. "It seems as though the harder I try to spare you pain, the more pain I cause you. I swear to you, I never thought anything like this was happening. It's true I didn't look as closely as I obviously should have at your life with your mother's remaining family…perhaps I feared what I might see…"

"You never even checked up on me? I guess Hermione was wrong, then," the boy plunged ahead bitterly. "It was never really me you cared about, after all. All you ever cared about was _this_!" The last word came out in a stifled shout, and he struck the scar on his forehead with the heel of his hand.

If Snape could feel those words like a kick in the stomach, how must they feel to Dumbledore? The old man's face was ashen, and his eyes filled with tears.

"That is not true," he said heavily. "No. It isn't true at all. But…I can see how you would believe it to be so. Yes, I can see. All too well. I have indeed failed you…most miserably."

With that, the headmaster covered his face with his hands and turned away. Potter watched him impassively for a moment, his eyes hard. He shook his head slowly, then spun on his heel and strode toward the door.

Part of Snape wanted to stop the boy. He was torn between shaking him roughly and telling him not to be a fool and urging him gently to be patient and listen to Dumbledore – that the man was tearing himself apart inside over this far more than the boy could imagine.

But the emotionally charged situation was beyond Severus Snape, and in the end he did nothing. As it turned out, he didn't need to do anything.

Potter paused at the door, his raised hand not quite touching the handle. The hard look on his face changed into something vulnerable and more suited to his age. Slowly, he turned around and looked at Dumbledore again. Seemingly unaware of Snape, he hesitantly crossed the room until he was standing just behind the old man.

As timidly as he had when he had reached out to Snape in his bat form for the first time, Potter lightly touched the older wizard's shoulder. Dumbledore, who hadn't heard him coming, started abruptly and swiveled around in his chair. The boy whipped his hand back nervously as though expecting to be struck, and for a moment the two stared at one another in silence.

When Snape replayed the scene in his mind later that night, he tried but failed to ascertain who had made the first move. It seemed to him that Dumbledore's arms came up at the exact moment that Potter, uttering a small, lost cry, tumbled forward, and then the boy was on his knees with his face buried in the old man's shoulder and his fingers tightly gripping his robes, and Albus had lowered his face to the boy's dark, untidy hair, one wrinkled hand on the back of Potter's head, the other on his shoulder, careful even in that moment to avoid touching his injuries.

And now, finally, Potter's shoulders were shaking, and Snape could tell by the muffled sounds that he was crying at last, for the first time in Merlin knew how many years. And although there were tears on Dumbledore's face, he made no sound, just allowed the boy cling desperately to his robes and cry while he held him.

After a moment, Potter said something. With his face pressed against Dumbledore's robes, the words came out indistinctly, but Snape thought they sounded like _I'm sorry._

He guessed he had assumed correctly when the old wizard murmured in response, "That's all right. You've done nothing wrong."

Feeling like an intruder, Snape slipped unnoticed from the office, pulling the door closed behind him softly.

Moving through the darkened corridors towards his familiar dungeons, Snape told himself he was merely relieved that Potter was now in hands far more capable than his own. He refused to acknowledge the rush of loneliness that had overcome him, the stab of envy that had pierced his heart as he had looked back at the old man and the boy huddled together in the room, unaware of anything but each other.

Snape could not have said who he envied more in that moment: Dumbledore…or Potter.


	15. Chapter 14

Harry cried for a long time.

It was though, once he'd let go at last, all the tears he'd choked bafck for years came pouring forth at once: the tears he hadn't cried for Sirius, for Cedric, for what had happened in the graveyard that awful night Voldemort returned; even for his parents. Only once did he try to stem their flow, putting his hands against Dumbledore's arms and starting to pull back, but the old man simply took his head in his hands and drew it gently back to his shoulder. This tenderness completely undid Harry; he gave up fighting and simply wept.

It had been so long since he'd _really_ cried that he had forgotten how awful it felt…and how much of a relief it was, too. He thought it felt almost like being nauseated…it felt horrible to _feel_ sick, then horrible to _be_ sick…but afterwards you began to feel better. Even the aftermath was similar…he felt weak, washed out and shaky.

For awhile after the tears finally stopped he stayed still, leaning against Dumbledore and resting the full weight of his head on the old man's frail but sturdy shoulder. If Dumbledore had begun stroking his hair with the hand cupping the back of Harry's head or had shifted in any way, Harry would have moved away at once, but the old man kept still, not saying anything, just holding him quietly.

It was oddly restful, Harry thought. He strained to remember if his father had ever supported him like this when he cried, but could not. Certainly Sirius never had – there had been no time for that. Mrs. Weasley was the closest he'd ever come to having an adult comfort him in this way.

After a time, Harry straightened up. He raised his eyes uncertainly to Dumbledore's. The headmaster gave him a small smile, and Harry immediately flushed and looked down. He suddenly felt…ashamed. Weak.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, then blushed more, remembering he had blurted those words out while he cried. In fact, he thought he might have said them several times.

Dumbledore took gentle hold of his chin and raised Harry's face until his eyes were level with the headmaster's.

"My dear boy," the old man said tenderly. "Please don't be ashamed of honest emotion. Tears, like laughter, are the soul's way of releasing our deepest feelings – and if they _are_ a cause for shame, then I have as much reason to be ashamed as you do." He gave Harry a rather watery smile. "I take it you had not yet cried for Sirius."

Harry smiled ruefully and lowered his eyes again with a brief shake of his head. Dumbledore frowned.

"Nor for Cedric?" he asked, concern in his voice.

Harry again shook his head.

"Harry…do you even remember the last time you cried?" Dumbledore asked gently.

Harry thought hard.

"I think…a few years before I came to Hogwarts," he said hesitantly. "My uncle…well…he doesn't have a lot of patience with what he called 'whining.'" He shivered and looked away.

"Oh, Harry." Dumbledore's voice was filled with regret…and a disturbing tinge of anger which Harry sensed was not for him. "So you swallowed it all down, I suppose."

Harry nodded mutely.

Dumbledore sighed, closing his eyes. When he opened them again a moment later, he gave Harry the sort of piercing look Harry was accustomed to in the past. When he spoke, however, his tone was gentle.

"Harry, I'll need to you tell me what happened."

Harry's stomach immediately clenched. He had known this request was coming – in fact, part of the reason he had almost walked out was because he didn't feel he could face the questions about what had happened over the past few weeks…or about his life away from the wizarding world.

As if he were reading his thoughts Dumbledore said, "I can see you don't want to talk about it, or you feel you can't. I understand. We're going to have to discuss your relatives in some depth at some point, Harry, but at this point, in the interests of getting you taken care of as quickly as possible, I think we can confine the conversation to what happened after Professor Snape arrived at your home in Surrey."

Harry sighed and closed his eyes, thinking about how to begin.

"I was working in the garden a few days after I got back to my aunt and uncle's house, and I found a hurt bat," he began slowly.

And suddenly the whole story came spilling out: the weeks of caring for the bat's injuries while he waited for someone to fetch him from the Dursleys', how he'd been lonely without Hedwig to keep him company…how he'd talked to the bat, telling it all of his secrets in an effort to distract himself from his grief over Sirius and anxiety over the Prophecy.

Then there were the things he could _not_ put into words: how he'd felt comforted by Spartacus's presence in his room; how its being there gave him a feeling of safety, as though someone was present who was on his side; how it felt good to be responsible for something, which made him feel less helpless…less like a pawn in a life-sized game of wizards' chess between Voldemort and Dumbledore himself. But when he looked into Dumbledore's face, Harry thought that perhaps he didn't need to try to express these things…he had the feeling that Dumbledore already understood.

When he had finished, the headmaster sighed, then sat silent for a time, staring at the floor between them.

"Thank you, Harry, for being frank with me," Dumbledore said finally, without looking up. "I know it was difficult for you."

Harry waited, but when the older wizard did not speak, ventured, "What will happen to me now, sir?" Dumbledore looked up again.

"Well, I think we need to see to your medical needs first, Harry, and then a good night's sleep is in order," the old man replied more briskly. "Tomorrow we will talk more…I was actually preparing to come and fetch you from your relatives' home myself later this week…but I will explain that further later on."

Harry was filled with curiosity at this, but quelled it for the moment. He recognized that he was nearing the end of his strength.

With a sigh, the headmaster straightened, and, resting his hands on his knees, looked closely at Harry.

"And now, Harry, I would like to invite Professor Snape to return and tend to your injuries," he said briskly.

"What? No! Professor, please, can't we just let it go?" Harry asked desperately. Didn't Dumbledore realize how the very sight of Snape made him feel humiliated and angry? And he didn't want anyone looking at what Uncle Vernon had done to him. "It's not so bad, really…the marks will go away…"

"No, Harry, I'm afraid we cannot 'let it go,'" Dumbledore said gravely. "I will not allow you to suffer pain when I can prevent it."

"Madam Pomfrey–" Harry began, but Dumbledore cut him off.

"Madam Pomfrey may well need to be consulted," the older wizard agreed, "but in the interests of keeping ministry involvement to a minimum, I think first employing Severus's skills in healing would be the wisest course, seeing as he is already…involved. And Harry," he added, "I have…a request to make of you, as well."

Surprised, Harry, who had been looking at the floor, met his headmaster's gaze questioningly.

"I want you," Dumbledore began carefully, "to try to find it within yourself to give Severus another chance at earning your trust and goodwill. I know this will be difficult for you," he went on, seeing Harry open his mouth to protest. "Severus has been very hard on you, I do not deny it. I have spoken to him about it in the past."

Dumbledore fell silent, considering. Harry waited.

"Perhaps I do not have a right to ask this of you," Dumbledore said slowly. "Particularly after I have so abused your trust myself. But I ask it because I believe it to be important and beneficial. For both you."

Again the old man fell silent, weighing his next words.

"There is so much I cannot tell you, Harry," he said finally, looking Harry straight in the eyes. "Things I must keep back for your sake, for the sake of the strategies I am employing in the war against Voldemort…for Professor Snape himself. I believe, with your good heart and generous nature, that were you to know certain things about Professor Snape, you would be able to trust him. But I cannot go against his wishes that I keep his confidences, even as I would not go against your wishes to keep certain things private. Do you understand me, Harry?"

As much as he hated to admit it, Harry did. He nodded reluctantly.

"You may find this difficult to believe," Dumbledore went on hesitantly, "but I am certain, from what I have seen tonight and from what I already know – and my guesses are generally good ones – that Professor Snape's perceptions of you have changed over these past weeks. Not because of how your family treats you," he added quickly as Harry's mouth tightened, "at least, not entirely – but because of the care you showed to Spartacus. Something new may have been born here, and it might do well to…encourage its growth."

Harry could not help help asking, "But why, sir? Why is it so important to you that we two get along?"

The old man paused for a long moment before answering. When he spoke again, his voice was more hesitant than ever.

"Harry…I believe, very firmly, that there is…buried treasure within Professor Snape," the old man said earnestly. "Treasures that can, perhaps, be unearthed by kind and patient prospectors."

Harry stared at him. He wasn't sure he could believe that - and even if it were true, surely _he_ wasn't the one for such a job as that.

"I'm hoping, Harry, that you and I together can manage this," Dumbledore said reassuringly.

_Well, at least he doesn't expect me to make this work by myself._

Harry thought for a long time. He thought about Spartacus's calm, sympathetic black eyes, watching him while he talked. He thought about the fact that Snape had not sneered at him after he transformed at the Dursleys'. He thought about how Snape had wrecked vengeance on the Dursleys when he really hadn't had to...lesser measures would have sufficed to stop his uncle from hurting him.

"All right, sir," he said finally. "I'll try."

* * *

Snape stared into the fire, an untouched glass of firewhisky near his right hand.

He had made only one stop on his way back to his quarters, and that was to his storeroom to put together a kit of healing potions that he carried with him back to his rooms in a wooden box. He had then taken a long shower, making the water as hot as he could stand it. He had felt a desperate need to purge away the oppressiveness the Dursley home had imposed upon him.

The shower didn't really help with this.

After cleaning up, Snape tended his bruised ribs and wounded shoulder. There wasn't much for him to do – Potter really had done an admirable job caring for him over the past few weeks with what little he had, and his healing had progressed far enough that it would serve no purpose to supplement the long-term methods with faster-acting remedies designed to be applied immediately to injuries still fresh. Snape contented himself with applying a salve to promote healing and lessen scarring to the shoulder wound and massaging a bruise palm with a mild pain reliever over his battered ribs.

It was after ten o'clock by this time, and although he was exhausted both mentally and physically from the day's events – indeed, from the _month's_ events – he changed into fresh robes and went to his sitting room instead of retiring, seating himself in his favorite armchair and using his wand to kindle a small fire in the fireplace. He briefly considered summoning a house elf to bring him food, but dismissed the thought, instead pouring himself the glass of firewhisky which now sat neglected on the end table next to him.

Finally, back in his own comfortable rooms with his familiar things around him, cleaned up and injuries tended to, he could let his guard down.

The potions master felt drained. Contrary to popular believe, he did have a heart, and just now that particular organ felt bruised and sore while his mind was full and bewildered by all the things he had seen and experienced over the past weeks.

It had been so easy…so ridiculously easy to hate the boy. Potter's extraordinary resemblance to Snape's boyhood nemesis had conveniently interfered with his connection to Lily, and the glasses obscuring her emerald eyes had helped to further widen the gap. The estrangement had been further aided by the fact that Snape had not seen those eyes directed at him in an expression other than anger, fear, wariness or defiance since Potter's first day of class, when they had held only curiosity for a few brief moments. That curious, uncertain gaze, so ready to trust him, had unnerved Snape terribly, and he had pounced on the first year quickly, obliterating it forever so far as he, Snape, was concerned.

At this moment, he would have given worlds to change the past.

Snape tried to muster up the familiar feelings of anger and animosity – this was _Potter_, after all, the nosy, arrogant brat who had invaded his thoughts so shamelessly last term.

But even as those damning words, "nosy" and "arrogant," entered his thoughts, so did memories so clear they caused his stomach to twist in knots – the memory of Potter lying on his side in a small bed with sagging springs, confessing to a furry little creature that he regretted invading his potions master's privacy in what was meant to be a search for answers; Potter, screwing up his face and wincing in pain as a belt burned a fiery trail across his back, but not attempting to defend himself or even to escape; Potter, whispering that he deserved his uncle's treatment; Potter, looking at him with Lily's eyes filled with trust and even tenderness one day – then pleading with him not to reveal his shameful secret the next.

Snape wished he could purge the memories of the last few weeks from his mind. It was so much easier believing that the boy he had sworn to protect for Lily's sake held nothing of her but her eyes. Now he knew that Lily – a part of her, at any rate – had been there all along, and he had never taken the time to see it.

The question was: what should he do now?

He really hadn't the faintest idea. There were many things to consider: his position as a spy, his standing in the eyes of the children of the Death Eaters, the boy's resemblance to James…he almost felt inclined to blame Potter for upsetting his long-cherished belief in his flaws. What right had the boy to worm his way into Snape's mind and even his heart at this stage of affairs?

After years of brushing away Dumbledore's gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) attempts to correct his misconceptions about the boy, Snape suddenly craved the old man's guidance more than ever.

The room was very quiet. The ticking of carriage clock on the mantel made the only sound. There was a potions journal on the end table, but he did not reach for it – nor did he sip at the whisky.

Lily was very much on his mind tonight.

When the flames in the fireplace suddenly blazed emerald green, he was not surprised. Dumbledore's voice issued from the fire: "Severus? Would you be so good as to return to my office, please?"

He had deliberately not thought about what was happening upstairs, but on some level he must have expected this summons. After all, he had not changed for bed or touched the whisky.

Snape rose, picked up the potions kit he had put together, and stepped into the fireplace.

* * *

When Snape flooed through to the headmaster's office, Dumbledore was standing near the desk, looking at him expectantly. Potter, still shirtless, was again seated on the edge of one of the armchairs, not looking at either of the two men.

"Severus," Dumbledore began," Harry and I have discussed it, and we think it might be a good idea if you employed your healing skills before he goes to see Poppy, in order that we might avoid awkward questions."

Snape understood immediately: Dumbledore intended to take care of the situation with Potter's relatives himself, _without_ ministry involvement. Hardly surprising – the headmaster's trust had been badly abused; he would not deal gently with the Dursleys. In addition, there was Potter's privacy to consider – and the even more important ramifications it would have if the details came to the attention of the Dark Lord. Madam Pomfrey, of course, would be obliged to report signs of abuse to the proper authorities. Even if she was not fooled after seeing an already-healed Potter, she _would_ have legitimate reasons to take the headmaster at his word and leave the situation in his hands. It did not hurt that the boy was only a year away from coming of age.

Snape had no complaints. As difficult as it would be, he wanted to heal Potter himself, though he would not examine his own motivations for his wish to do so too closely.

With a slight nod to the Dumbledore, Snape crossed over to stand in front of Potter. The boy looked up at him reluctantly. Snape was surprised to find no animosity in his face, only a guarded anxiety. Without a word, Snape pulled out his wand and performed a simple diagnostic spell before Potter had time to flinch.

"Potter has two cracked ribs," Snape noted. "It would be best to leave those to Madam Pomfrey, whose skill at healing bones surpasses my own. The rest I can take care of if, as I am guessing, you don't wish her to make a report on…where the injuries came from?"

"That would, Harry and I have decided, be much the better plan," Dumbledore agreed.

Snape nodded and looked down again at Potter. The boy looked up at him apprehensively.

Snape hesitated, trying to decide how best to proceed. Finally he said, "Why don't we begin with your face, Potter?"

The boy swallowed and nodded briefly.

Without further ado, Snape pulled the other armchair in front of Potter, sat down, and rummaged through the potions kit for bruise balm and essence of murtlap. Potter removed his glasses and held still while Snape, being as gentle as possible, applied the balm to his eye and the murtlap to the belt weal and the split lip. When he was finished, he paused, then said slowly, "It would probably be best, Potter, if you were to lie down on your stomach while I tended your back."

Dumbledore stepped forward then, and with a wave of his wand transformed the chair Snape had risen from into a narrow, padded table with a large pillow on one end. Potter eyed it unhappily.

"Sir," he began timidly, looking from one man to the other, "couldn't we just-"

"No, Harry, I'm afraid we most certainly could not," Dumbledore said kindly but firmly.

When the boy still hesitated, Snape added quietly, "It's the least Spartacus could do for you, Potter, after your careful attentions to him over the course of the past few weeks."

He had surprised himself by saying it and flushed almost immediately, but Dumbledore gave him an approving smile while Potter stared at him in amazement.

With a deep breath, the boy gingerly climbed onto the table, grabbing the pillow so that it lay lengthwise under his chest, head and neck, one arm curled around it. He looked both scared and miserable, and Snape didn't blame him. He knew how vulnerable the boy must be feeling…he himself would have been mortified to have anyone inspect the damage his father had inflicted on him when he was Potter's age.

Dumbledore seemed to realize this, too, for he moved to the head of the table and took Potter's right hand in his own. The boy smiled at him briefly, squeezed his hand, then looked straight ahead again. Snape picked up the potions kit and stepped over to the table to see what he was dealing with.

It was the first real look Snape had of the damage Dursley had inflicted on his nephew. From neck to waist, Potter's back was covered with deep bruises, puffy welts and gouges left by the steel belt buckle. Unable to grasp how the boy had managed to keep silent under this punishment, Snape felt his heart swell with indignation and pity. He looked over and saw that Dumbledore was pale and shaking. The two older wizards traded murderous looks that promised coming retribution on the one who had done this.

Face turned to the side on the pillow, Potter shifted apprehensive green eyes to Snape's face. Snape cleared his throat.

"I'm afraid…this is going to be somewhat painful, Potter." Snape was surprised to hear a quiver in his own voice.

Potter nodded once, then shifted his eyes back to the wall. Snape reached for the disinfectant. The broken skin was at risk for infection, and that had to be attended to first.

The young Gryffindor hissed with pain when Snape began applying the astringent. Snape saw his fingers tighten over Dumbledore's, then the boy turned his face into the pillow. He made no sound, but his tense muscles quivered under Snape's hands.

Snape managed to keep his hands steady, but it was a near thing. He almost felt as though he were inflicting the fiery sting on himself. He wished that he could.

Dumbledore looked anguished. After a few moments of just letting Potter squeeze his hand, the old wizard suddenly leaned forward and murmured an incantation into the boy's ear in a language unfamiliar to Snape. To Snape's surprise, the boy's muscles relaxed, his head rolled to the side, the green eyes slipped closed and Potter's breathing deepened. Snape paused.

"What spell was that?" he asked curiously.

Dumbledore looked surprised himself. "Merely a simple relaxing charm…it was not meant to put him to sleep." His face grew sad. "I imagine he is so worn with pain, fatigue and emotion that it did not take much to put him out."

"Just as well," Snape remarked, going on with his work. "It would only have been painful for him, and now when he wakes the worst will be over."

For a few minutes he worked in silence. Dumbledore remained near, holding Potter's lax fingers in his own.

"Severus," the old wizard said in a low voice. "Did…this…appear to be a common occurrence?"

Snape hesitated, then said slowly, "I'm afraid so, headmaster. While I did not directly witness more than a few occurrences, I did see their aftermath. And I was present for what you see the evidence of here." He paused, then added, "Also…the boy's reactions indicated a long familiarity with this sort of treatment."

Snape did not look up at the soft sound of grief from Dumbledore, unwilling to see the pain in the old man's face. When the older wizard spoke again, however, his voice was composed, even businesslike.

"And you, Severus? How came you to be injured? Harry described your wounds to me."

As Snape launched into the story of MacNair and Bellatrix in Surrey, Dumbledore became very grave indeed.

"This is most ominous," the old man said. He looked troubled. "You say they did not attempt to intercept Harry on his errand?"

"No, headmaster," Snape replied. "Had they done so, or otherwise showed any other inclination to attack, I would have intervened at once. As it was, it appeared to be more of a…surveillance operation."

Dumbledore frowned. "Most…suggestive. We are fortunate indeed that Voldemort did not attempt to call you while you were in Harry's home."

"Indeed." Snape was deeply relieved at this himself, though, like Dumbledore, troubled. Whatever plan the Dark Lord might be formulating, he had not yet confided in the Order's resident spy.

Dumbledore pondered this information pensively for a few moments, then gave his head a slight shake.

"It had been a very long day, Severus, and we're best attacking this with fresh minds tomorrow…particularly you, my boy," he added, looking keenly at the potions master. "You are recovering quite well, I hope?"

"Yes. Potter did an admirable job tending to my shoulder, I am forced to admit."

Dumbledore smiled at this.

"You see, Severus? Have I not told you to try to see Harry as himself, and not as his father?"

"He did not do it for me, headmaster. He did it for Spartacus." As soon as the words were out, Snape wished he had held his tongue. Even he could hear the regret behind the bitterness in his tone.

Dumbledore, however, did not laugh, but instead looked thoughtful.

"Severus," he said after a pause, "I have long known that Harry's is a rare soul. His capacity to love is equaled only by his capacity to forgive." The headmaster smiled a little wistfully at this, perhaps thinking of how fully the boy had forgiven _him _his shortcomingsearlier this evening.

It took Severus a moment to realize what Dumbledore was saying. When he did, he found he was too tired to be indignant. He paused in his ministrations to Potter's injuries, thinking hard.

"I can't change, Albus," he said finally, "not really."

Dumbledore was still holding Potter's relaxed hand in his right one; he now reached over to take Snape's wrist in his left hand, so that the three of them were connected.

"My dear boy," the older wizard said gently, "you've already changed in the ways that matter."

Snape felt a thickening in this own throat at this, and looked away quickly.

Dumbledore decided he had planted enough seeds for this night. "Are you nearly finished?" he asked.

"I am quite finished now," Snape replied, wiping his hands with a clean flannel. Potter's wounds had closed, the welts were gone and the bruises now looked several days old. In a few days they would be gone completely. Snape thought bitterly that it would be well if only the scars left on the soul could be vanquished so easily.

"Excellent," Dumbledore said briskly. "I suggest then we remove Harry to Poppy's care and retire. The difficulties ahead of us can wait until tomorrow afternoon…in the morning I intend to pay a call to Surrey," he added, his blue eyes becoming like chips of ice.

Snape regarded him with apprehension. Dumbledore angry was a frightening sight to behold, he knew from experience. But the old man visibly gathered himself and turned to the boy, reaching for Potter's shoulder to gently shake him awake.

"Don't bother," Snape said, and sliding an arm under Potter's chest, he turned the young wizard over and gathered him into his arms. Potter was so far out of it that he only mumbled a little and let his head droop sideways off Snape's shoulder.

It had been a natural thing to do, but once Snape realized what he'd done he froze, holding Potter awkwardly in his arms, and glared at Dumbledore, daring the old man to say anything.

But Dumbledore merely smiled and commented lightly, "He's a bit big to be carried."

"He doesn't weigh anything," Snape snarled, then felt a stab of guilt when the headmaster's smile faded.

"Albus…you didn't know."

"No, I didn't," Dumbledore said wearily. "But I should have."

The headmaster rubbed his eyes under his half-moon spectacles, sighed and said, "Come…let's alert Poppy that she has a patient."


	16. Chapter 15

A fifteen-year-old boy is no lightweight, even if he is small and undernourished for his age. Snape's sore shoulder was throbbing in counterpoint to his heartbeat by the time they reached the infirmary, but he did not regret his decision to carry Potter himself, without magic. Over the past several weeks, Potter had put Snape's needs (_well, _Spartacus's _needs, anyway,_ he thought ruefully) ahead of his own, going without food and rest, risking his uncle's wrath by pilfering fruit for Snape when it was being denied to him, even earning himself a cruel beating by attacking his larger, stronger cousin. Snape was glad now to think that, by suffering a little himself, he might be adding to the boy's comfort.

Still, it was with relief that he carefully eased Potter's limp form onto the nearest bed in the empty hospital wing. Carefully he settled the boy on his side while Dumbledore lifted Potter's feet onto the mattress. Then the older wizard, with a wave of his wand, transformed Harry's baggy hand-me-down jeans into pajama bottoms.

"There is no point in putting a jacket on him until Madam Pomfrey has seen to his ribs," Dumbledore said quietly.

For a moment, both men stood silently beside the bed, looking at the sleeping boy's back. Despite Snape's careful attentions, it was still all-too-obvious that the cuts and bruises had been inflicted deliberately.

Finally Snape said out loud what he guessed they were both thinking. "Madam Pomfrey will never believe this was the result of a quidditch accident."

Albus simply stared pensively at Potter's inert form for a moment. When he spoke, he did not respond to the potions master's statement but instead murmured, "How could Vernon Dursley dare to do this to him, after the Order had spoken to him at the train station just over a month ago, and knowing he'd be risking my anger?"

Without thinking, Snape replied, "Potter _did_ invoke your name in an attempt to forestall this beating."

He instantly wished he had bitten his tongue. What had he been thinking? He must be tired indeed to have made such a slip. It was too late to take it back, though – Dumbledore had turned to him, eyebrows raised.

"Indeed? And how did Vernon Dursley respond to that?" The old man's voice merely sounded mildly interested, but Snape was not fooled. He could feel the buildup of energy in the air in the headmaster's general vicinity. It made Snape nervous. He could count on one hand how many times he had ever seen Dumbledore truly angry – angry enough to lose control – and it was not something he was eager to experience again. Snape privately thought that Dumbledore angry made the Dark Lord look like a puffskein.

Snape tried to take a deep, calming breath without being obvious about it. Keeping his eyes on Potter's sleeping form, he said simply, "Dursley indicated to the boy that you were fully aware of his preferred methods of…discipline, for want of a better word." Snape hesitated, then finished in a quieter tone, "He also implied to Potter that you chose him as the boy's guardian for this reason, as you felt he could provide a much-needed…firm hand…in his upbringing."

The silence stretched out so long that Snape finally dared to look up. Dumbledore was standing straight and still, staring fixedly at him. His face was set in harsh lines and his normally warm blue eyes were like frosted steel.

Three of the windows on the north wall of the hospital wing suddenly exploded outwards.

Potter woke with a startled cry and Snape himself could not keep from cowering away from his old mentor. A moment later, Madam Pomfrey came hurrying through the door that led to her office and private chambers beyond.

"Headmaster!" the mediwitch cried. "What on earth–"

"My apologies, Poppy," Dumbledore interrupted her smoothly. His voice and demeanor were calm once again. He raised his wand and waved it at the windows, which repaired themselves instantly. "I had been about to firecall you at your home…I had not realized you were in residence."

Madam Pomfrey blinked at them, then obviously decided not to pursue it. "I just arrived this evening after dinner; I'd planned to spend the night and go over my supplies list for next term. Orders will be due soon, you know." Her gaze shifted to the bed behind Snape and Dumbledore, where Potter was just sitting up.

"How'd I get here?" the boy asked drowsily.

"Never mind that now, Potter," Snape cut in hastily, eyeing Dumbledore, who was smiling slightly. "Madam Pomfrey is here to heal your ribs."

"His ribs?" Snapping immediately into medical mode, Madam Promfrey hurried forward, drawing her wand as she came and performing a swift diagnostic spell. "Merlin, Mr. Potter, what have you been doing now?"

She put a hand on Potter's shoulder, then froze as she caught sight of his back. Now taking both the boy's shoulders, she applied pressure on them until he turned reluctantly away from her, allowing the mediwitch a better view. She caught her breath.

"Merlin!" Madam Promfrey gasped. "Harry?" She leaned forward, trying to gaze searchingly into his face, but the boy stubbornly avoided her gaze. Bewildered, she turned back to the two older wizards. "Gentlemen…what–?"

Dumbledore took a step forward and looked her straight in the eye. "Harry has had…a slight accident with his broom, Poppy."

"But–"

"Severus and I are taking care of it," Dumbledore added firmly.

Snape watched as the mediwitch stared fixedly at Dumbledore for a moment. A sudden look of understanding came over her face – along with fierce anger. Her face reddened, and she said coolly, "We'll discuss this in greater detail later, I trust, Headmaster."

She fixed Snape with a similar glare (_What have _I_ done? _the potions master thought, amused), then turned back to Potter with a more solicitous air. "Sit tight, Harry…I'll gather together some remedies and we'll get you fixed up in no time."

As she hurried into her storeroom, muttering distractedly, Dumbledore stepped over to Potter once more, laying a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder.

"My apologies for waking you, Harry. Don't worry…we'll get all this sorted out. In the meantime, allow Madam Pomfrey to look after you, and we'll talk more tomorrow."

"Yes, sir," Potter said, leaning back in the bed.

He winced as the mattress came in contact with this battered back, then seemed surprised at the diminishment of pain. Sitting up and twisting around, he tried to look over his own shoulder at his back, then turned to face the two men again. He met Snape's eyes.

"Sir," Potter began hesitantly. "I…thank you. Thank you very much."

Despite himself, Snape was touched by the sincerity and simple gratitude in the boy's voice. Not trusting himself to speak, he merely inclined his head.

Potter studied him a moment, then sighed a little and looked down at his hands, which were resting in his lap. Suddenly, he seemed to notice something.

"Hang on a minute," the boy said slowly. His eyes narrowed as though he were thinking hard…then he looked up at Snape again, and the potions master was startled to see a look of incredulous indignation on his face.

"You _bit_ me!" Potter said loudly in a thoroughly outraged voice.

"I _beg_ your pardon, Mr. Potter!" Madam Pomfrey had appeared in the doorway, a tray loaded with potions and jars in her hands. She looked both astounded and concerned, as though she feared the boy might be delirious. "A teacher would never–"

"Actually _bit_ me!" The boy, looking positively indignant, turned to Dumbledore, whose blue eyes were twinkling again. "Professor–"

Snape, already turning red with embarrassment, cut in heatedly. "It's not as if I could take points, Potter, and considering you were pilfering in my potions stores–"

"Professor _Snape_!" cried Madam Pomfrey, aghast, and Snape suddenly realized how this must sound to her – after all, she had no idea he was an animagus. He could only imagine the picture that was beginning to form in her head.

Apparently Dumbledore could picture it, too, because his mustache was twitching.

Madam Pomfrey and Potter both stared at Snape, speechless. Suddenly Potter grinned.

"Yeah, well…I had to clean up your newspaper everyday, anyway, so I guess we're even."

Dumbledore laughed outright at this.

Glaring around wildly, Snape spun on his heel and strode out of the hospital wing, trying vainly to clutch the remains of his shattered dignity around him. He didn't have much to work with.

* * *

"_Will you enter into my service, Severus Snape? Will you swear eternal loyalty to me and accept me as your lord and master?"_

_He bowed before the Dark Lord, drowning in a mixture of terror and exhilaration. _

"_My Lord, I seek only to serve you," he whispered, bending low to kiss the black robes. "I am not worthy…while my mother's blood is pure, my father…"_

_He faltered a little, then stopped._

"_Ah, young Severus," the Dark Lord hissed. "Your mother paid for her folly, and caused you to pay for it, too. A great pity. But we will forget the past, now."_

_The Dark Lord raised the teen-aged boy to his feet and drew his wand. "Hold out your arm and look at me, Severus."_

_Tossing his head to try and push his long, tangled black hair out of his eyes, Snape obeyed. The scarlet gaze bore into him, but Snape, a natural occlumens, did not attempt shield himself, instead letting Voldemort plumb his mind, his very soul. In the space of a moment, the Dark Lord had sifted through a thousand memories that Snape never shared with anyone, or even took out to examine for himself if he could avoid it. Images of an abused and lonely life played out before Voldemort's hungry, pseudo-sympathetic stare. As he touched the tip of his wand to Snape's forearm, he lifted one spidery hand to push back a stray lock of the boy's hair. A fierce, burning pain ignited in Snape's arm while a thrill of joy at the calculating caress flitted through his heart._

"_Yesssssss," the Dark Lord whispered, watching as Tobias Snape backhanded his small son in the teenager's mind. "I can be your father, Severus…I can be your father in a way our own father never could be."_

Snape jerked awake, his heart pounding. Shivering, he sat up, pushed the hair back from his eyes and reached for his wand. "Lumos."

In the soft light of the wand, he glanced at the water clock on his bedroom mantel: 3:38 a.m.

_Damn…what made me dream of that? _He shuddered, pressing his thumbs to his eyelids.

The memory of the day he had accepted the Dark Mark always made him cringe, and not just as a reformed Death Eater. What made his insides twist was the way Voldemort had played him so expertly: a potentially powerful wizard, an abused young boy with no friends, a sullen teen who judged all muggles by his nearest role model – his own vicious, pathetic father. Oh, what an easy mark he had been! The Dark Lord, of course, loved no one but himself and did not relish touching anyone; two facts that in retrospect somehow made that careful gesture – the two unnaturally long forefingers lightly brushing the hair away from the young Snape's brow – all the worse in its cold calculation. No doubt he had laughed inside at this foolish teen, seeing through all this pitiful motivations: a desire for power so he would no longer be weak, and a pathetic need for a surrogate father. The thought that he, Snape, could have possibly believed, even subconsciously, that _Voldemort_ could fulfill this role–

Snape threw back the covers and moved restlessly into his sitting room, settling in his customary chair by the fireplace. He supposed it was his sojourn into Potter's home life that had evoked this unpleasant dream.

_Dreams_.

Potter often had bad dreams, as Snape had seen for himself. What if he experienced one now in the hospital wing, with no one near to reassure him if he woke in the unfamiliar place?

At that thought, Snape rose and hurried back into his bedroom to put on his robes.

* * *

The hospital wing looked deserted, but Snape smiled slightly when he saw the squashy purple armchair at Potter's bedside. Obviously, Dumbledore had been here earlier, doing precisely what Snape himself had come to do now. Snape availed himself of the chair and sat regarding the boy before him.

Potter lay on his side facing the chair. Snape was gratified to see that he appeared to be sleeping deeply and restfully: the blankets and sheets were not mussed as they would have been had he been tossing about in the throes of a nightmare. He lay with his head on his arm, and his face, while still bearing the traces of tears, appeared more relaxed and youthful than Snape had ever seen it. Obviously his cry with Albus earlier in the evening had done him a great deal of good.

Even with the green eyes closed, Snape could see Lily more than ever in Potter's face. Without his glasses her high cheekbones, tapered jaw and clear, pale complexion were more obvious.

_Where do we go from here?_ Snape wondered.

He sighed a little and rose. This was too great a question to ponder just now. The boy was sleeping comfortably and he himself needed more rest. There would be time to think on these things tomorrow.

Perhaps it was the rustle of robes as he rose from his chair, but as he turned to go Potter stirred and woke. Without raising his head from this arm, he blinked up at Snape.

The potions master froze as the boy's green eyes found his black ones. He did not know how to explain his presence here, at this hour. But while he was searching frantically for something to say, Potter suddenly smiled at him – an amazingly sweet and gentle smile that took Snape's breath away and made the poor excuse he was formulating die before it reached his lips.

Because it had never before been directed at him, he had not known that, in addition to her eyes, Harry Potter had also inherited his mother's smile.

"Hey, Spartacus," Potter whispered, and closed his eyes once more. He slid back into sleep as easily as a breaching dolphin returns to the sea.

Snape stared down at him for a long moment, then slowly resumed his seat.

* * *

A little over an hour later, Poppy Pomfrey, who did not allow herself to sleep deeply when she had a patient, entered the silent hospital wing to check on her young charge. Satisfied that he was comfortable, she tucked the blankets more closely around him and departed again for her own room.

The hospital wing was warded to alert her to intruders – usually students sneaking in to visit friends after hours. Having received no such warnings, she did not bother to examine the shadowy corners of the high-ceiled ward.

She therefore never noticed the sleeping bat hanging, suspended, from the rafters directly above Harry Potter's bed.


End file.
